Membrane technology is essential for water and wastewater treatment but unexpected fouling often occurs in various membrane separations. Thus, the development of antifouling membrane is one of the hot topics in the field of membrane study. Additive blending is a promising method to fabricate functional membranes in large scale. Two hydrophilic additives containing the same number of the methyl diethylene glycol methacrylate (MDEGMA) monomers grafted from the ethyl cellulose (EC) backbones but in different architectures by atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). One of the additives was with shorter MDEGMA chains grafting from more sites on the EC backbone, while the other additive was with longer MDEGMA chains grafting from less sites on EC. Two hydrophilic membranes were prepared by blending the additives with cellulose acetate (CA, bulk polymer) in the same ratio through non-solvent induced phase inversion. The results indicated that the higher grafting density of the additive with shorter hydrophilic chains resulted in a higher pure water flux of the prepared membrane. In addition, the sparser and longer hydrophilic chains of the additive formed more hydrophilic membrane surface with better resistance to the fouling of humic acid and E. coli. Obviously, the molecular architecture of the additives constructed from the same monomers may affect both pore size and surface hydrophilicity of the prepared membrane. Thus, the additive molecular architecture tuning approach provided a more efficient way to modify membrane antifouling performance than the conventional method of adjusting quantity of the additive in the membrane matrix. This study indicated a more efficient and environmental friendly way of membrane modification which may guide the preparation of the functional additive and then the functional membrane.

Membrane hydrophilicity tuning by the functional additives with different molecular architectures

2019 Fall National Meeting

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