Sodium Chloroacetate Modified Polyethyleneimine/Trimesic Acid Nanofiltration Membrane to Improve Antifouling Performance

Abstract

Nanofiltration (NF) is a separation technology with broad application prospects. Membrane fouling is an important bottleneck-restricting technology development. In the past, we prepared a positively charged polyethyleneimine/trimesic acid (PEI/TMA) NF membrane with excellent performance. Inevitably, it also faces poor resistance to protein contamination. Improving the antifouling ability of the PEI/TMA membrane can be achieved by considering the hydrophilicity and chargeability of the membrane surface. In this work, sodium chloroacetate (ClCH2COONa) is used as a modifier and is grafted onto the membrane surface. Additionally, 0.5% ClCH2COONa and 10 h modification time are the best conditions. Compared with the original membrane (M0, 17.2 L m−2 h−1), the initial flux of the modified membrane (M0-e, 30 L m−2 h−1) was effectively increased. After filtering the bovine albumin (BSA) solution, the original membrane flux dropped by 47% and the modified membrane dropped by 6.2%. The modification greatly improved the antipollution performance of the PEI/TMA membrane.