Fouling-Free Membranes Obtained by Facile Surface Modification of Commercially Available Membranes Using the Dynamic Forming Method

Abstract

The dynamic forming method was first employed for the preparation of fouling-free membranes. The copolymer of 1-carboxy-N,N-dimethyl-N-(2′-methacryloyloxyethyl) methanaminium inner salt and n-butyl methacrylate was selected for the surface modification polymer to realize the fouling-free property in this study, and its aqueous solution was filtered using a commercially available ultrafiltration membrane. The surface modification polymer was thus deposited on the ultrafiltration membrane in a facile manner over several minutes. Compared to the unmodified membrane, the dynamically formed membrane with the surface modification polymer layer proved to have excellent fouling resistance against 1000 ppm bovine serum albumin (BSA) solution. In particular, the dynamically formed membrane was hardly fouled and maintained its initial flux when the filtration flux was set below 6 × 10–6 m3 m–2 s–1.