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Article

Reduction of Biofouling of a Microfiltration Membrane Using Amide Functionalities—Hydrophilization without Changes in Morphology

Leibniz Institute of Surface Engineering (IOM), Permoserstr. 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany
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Polymers 2020, 12(6), 1379; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12061379
Received: 6 April 2020 / Revised: 2 June 2020 / Accepted: 9 June 2020 / Published: 19 June 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymers for Membrane Application)
A major goal of membrane science is the improvement of the membrane performance and the reduction of fouling effects, which occur during most aqueous filtration applications. Increasing the surface hydrophilicity can improve the membrane performance (in case of aqueous media) and decelerates membrane fouling. In this study, a PES microfiltration membrane (14,600 L m−2 h−1 bar−1) was hydrophilized using a hydrophilic surface coating based on amide functionalities, converting the hydrophobic membrane surface (water contact angle, WCA: ~90°) into an extremely hydrophilic one (WCA: ~30°). The amide layer was created by first immobilizing piperazine to the membrane surface via electron beam irradiation. Subsequently, a reaction with 1,3,5-benzenetricarbonyl trichloride (TMC) was applied to generate an amide structure. The presented approach resulted in a hydrophilic membrane surface, while maintaining permeance of the membrane without pore blocking. All membranes were investigated regarding their permeance, porosity, average pore size, morphology (SEM), chemical composition (XPS), and wettability. Soxhlet extraction was carried out to demonstrate the stability of the applied coating. The improvement of the modified membranes was demonstrated using dead-end filtration of algae solutions. After three fouling cycles, about 60% of the initial permeance remain for the modified membranes, while only ~25% remain for the reference. View Full-Text
Keywords: polymer membrane; microfiltration; hydrophilization; amide coating polymer membrane; microfiltration; hydrophilization; amide coating
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MDPI and ACS Style

Breite, D.; Went, M.; Prager, A.; Kühnert, M.; Schulze, A. Reduction of Biofouling of a Microfiltration Membrane Using Amide Functionalities—Hydrophilization without Changes in Morphology. Polymers 2020, 12, 1379. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12061379

AMA Style

Breite D, Went M, Prager A, Kühnert M, Schulze A. Reduction of Biofouling of a Microfiltration Membrane Using Amide Functionalities—Hydrophilization without Changes in Morphology. Polymers. 2020; 12(6):1379. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12061379

Chicago/Turabian Style

Breite, Daniel, Marco Went, Andrea Prager, Mathias Kühnert, and Agnes Schulze. 2020. "Reduction of Biofouling of a Microfiltration Membrane Using Amide Functionalities—Hydrophilization without Changes in Morphology" Polymers 12, no. 6: 1379. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12061379

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