| abstract |
Ultraporous and microporous polymer membranes cast from metastable dispersions are significantly improved by limiting the time of environmental exposure to less than about 0.5, preferably less than 0.25 seconds, between casting and quenching, and reducing the casting temperatures about 10 DEG to about 20 DEG C. lower than the usual prior art values. The resulting membranes have far less debris entrained in the membrane, far more consistent and uniform pore sizes, a substantially greater number of skin pores, and greatly increased flow rates for any given pore diameter. The membranes are highly asymmetrical and skinned with a standard deviation in flow rate of less than about 400 and a flow rate covariance of less than about 6, with skin pore diameters of from about 0.001 mu . |