Structural study of cyclopore microfiltration membranes

Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), a recently developed technique, has proved t o be a specially useful tool to characterise different types of material su rfaces. In this work, we have used AFM to achieve a complete surface charac terisation of several microfiltration membranes. These membranes are obtain ed by the track-etching method and, consequently, they are very suitable as test membranes, as having a very simple porous structure. For these membra nes, several interesting structural parameters have been studied, as: poros ity, pore size distributions and surface roughness of the membrane samples. All these parameters, conveniently analysed, have been compared with resul ts obtained from other complementary characterisation techniques, to assure the realiability and validity of the obtained results. Important informati on on the membrane samples structure has been obtained. in that sense has b een determined a clear asymmetry between both membrane sides, asymmetry tha t tan be attributed to the manufacture process itself.