Antifouling performance of poly(lysine methacrylamide)-grafted PVDF microfiltration membrane for solute separation

In this work, antifouling poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) microfiltration membrane was fabricated via surface activation by atmosphere plasma treatment and subsequently surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP). Zwitterionic poly(lysine methacrylamide) (LysAA) brushes were successfully grafted onto membrane surface as confirmed by Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The wetting ability of the graft membranes was improved significantly with water contact angle decreased from 121.6 degrees to as low as 29.0 degrees. The graft membranes also exhibited enhanced anti-protein-fouling and anti-oil-fouling properties with water flux recovery ratios as high as 86% and 82% respectively. This work provides a substrate-independent method for the fabrication of antifouling membranes with well-defined pLysAA brushes, which may find applications in protein separation, water treatment and oil/water separation, etc. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.