Studies on copper coated polysulfone/modified poly isobutylene alt-maleic anhydride blend membrane and its antibiofouling property

As nanofiltration is gaining more and more importance in the field of desalination, one has to address the many obstacles in order to achieve effective/efficient filtration. One such issue is biofouling and microbial attack to the membrane. This paper describes about the study on copper coating onto the membrane surface as biofouling protective layer. This is an attempt to come up with a new approach for desalination and an antimicrobial membrane. The work indicates that, the copper coated membrane can resist the possible microbial attack to some extent while maintaining good salt rejection and appreciable flux. SEM and FOX studies had shown the distribution of copper on the membrane surface. The copper coated membrane had shown the maximum salt rejection of about 96% for 3500 ppm NaCl solution and also it had shown the pure water flux of 36 L m(-2) h(-1). (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.