Design of a novel poly(aryl ether nitrile)-based composite ultrafiltration membrane with improved permeability and antifouling performance using zwitterionic modified nano-silica

Qi Wang; Fengna Dai; Shangying Zhang; Mengxia Wang; Chunhai Chen; Youhai Yu

doi:10.1039/d1ra00376c

Design of a novel poly(aryl ether nitrile)-based composite ultrafiltration membrane with improved permeability and antifouling performance using zwitterionic modified nano-silica

RSC Adv. 2021 Apr 23;11(25):15231-15244. doi: 10.1039/d1ra00376c. eCollection 2021 Apr 21.

Authors

Qi Wang¹, Fengna Dai¹, Shangying Zhang¹, Mengxia Wang¹, Chunhai Chen¹, Youhai Yu¹

Affiliation

¹ Center for Advanced Low-Dimension Materials, State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Material Science and Engineering, Donghua University Shanghai 201620 P. R. China yuyouhai@dhu.edu.cn.

Abstract

Zwitterionic nano-silica (SiO₂ NPs) obtained by lysine surface modification was used as a hydrophilic inorganic filler for preparing a poly(aryl ether nitrile) (PEN) nanocomposite membrane via an immersion precipitation phase inversion method. The effects of zwitterionic SiO₂ NPs addition on the morphology, separation and antifouling performance of the synthesized membranes were investigated. Zwitterionic surface modification effectively avoided the agglomeration of SiO₂ NPs. The PEN/zwitterionic SiO₂ NPs composite membranes exhibited improved porosity, equilibrium water content, hydrophilicity and permeability due to the introduction of hydrophilic SiO₂ NPs in the casting solution, and the optimal pure water flux was up to 507.2 L m^-2 h^-1, while the BSA rejection ratio was maintained at 97.4%. A static adsorption capacity of 72.9 μg cm^-2 and the FRR up to 85.3% in the dynamic antifouling experiment proved that the introduction of zwitterionic SiO₂ NPs inhibited irreversible fouling and enhanced the antifouling ability of the PEN membrane.