Recently, the use of ion exchange membranes has sharply increased. Ion exchange membranes are used in the following applications: desalting electrodialysis for water treatment, water splitting electrodialysis for the production of freshwater. In this study a heterogeneous cation exchange membrane was prepared by mixing ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) and commercial cation exchange resin, Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), commercial cation exchange resin and sulfonated poly(phenylene oxide)(sPPO) to determine the optimum preparation conditions and to compare the properties of this material to those of commercial membrane.
A comparison of the heterogeneous cation exchange membrane and commercial membrane revealed that the added weight % of ion exchange resin higher than 70% to obtain enhanced physical properties such as the ion exchange capacity and electrical resistance. A tensile strength that was more than four times higher was also achieved in the heterogeneous cation membrane with a mixing ratio of 30:70. When EVA heterogeneous membrane, the superior electric properties were due to the excellent durability of the EVA resin. Therefore, based on the chemical and mechanical properties, the optimum mixing ratio of EVA and the ion exchange powder was 30:70, which resulted in an electrical resistance of 4~10 Ω?cm2, an ion exchange capacity of 0.8~1.0 meq/g, and a mechanical strength of 40~60 kgf/cm2. And when PVDF heterogeneous membrane, despite the weak durable membrane of PVDF resin, chemical and mechanical properties are considered, the optimum mixing ratio between PVDF, IER and SPPO were at 30 : 70, by which electric resistance was measured as 3~5 Ω?cm2, ion exchange capacity as 0.6~1.0 meq/g, while mechanical strength was in a range of 12~15 kgf/cm2.