Membrane Hydrophilization: Towards Low Fouling Polymeric Membranes

In this work, hydrophilization strategies to manufacture low fouling membranes, which include (i) post-modification performed by photo-graft copolymerization of hydrophilic monomers onto a commercial polyethersulfone (PES) UF membrane, (ii) hydrophilization via blend polymer membrane with hydrophilic additive during phase separation (NIPS) and (iii) reactive PS method performed by UV-irradiating the proto-membrane before coagulation, are presented. The results suggest that all hydrophilization methods resulted in membranes having lower contact angles indicating more hydrophilic. Furthermore, the membranes demonstrated higher resistances towards adsorptive and ultrafiltration fouling. Consequently, higher permeate fluxes were resulted from hydrophilized membranes than without hydrophilization.