A defect free semipermeable composite membrane having excellent integrity
and high water permeability is provided. Said composite membrane
comprises an inside support layer to provide sufficient mechanical
strength; an outside barrier layer to provide selective separation; and a
middle layer to provide both physical adhesion and chemical binding
between said support and said barrier layer to bond them together. Three
different methods for making said defect free composite membrane are
discovered. These methods have been successfully utilized to produce high
quality coatings and defect free composite membranes, which are
independent of chemical composition and physical structure of said
support. In the present invention, ultrasonic sonication is discovered to
be effective to speed up the phase inversion process of a membrane
casting solution, thus allows produce a composite membrane at a speed
much higher than those disclosed in the prior art. Said defect free
composite membranes have broad applications, ranging from filtration of
fruit juice, wine and milk to biotech down stream processing and
purification of drinking water, municipal and industrial wastewater.