Abstract:

Separation membrane is widely used in various separation processes such as in wastewater treatment, medicine, food and dairy processing, and chemical engineering.However, membranes are easily to be fouled by proteins and microbes, which decrease the membrane performance and lifetime. As a result, separation membranes can be expensive which inhibit it's wide use. In this study, cardo poly(aryl ether ketone) containing carboxyl(PEK-COOH) was used to fabricate ultrafiltration membrane. Lysine(Lys), arginine(Arg) and histidine(His) were introduced to the PEK-COOH membrane surface via 1-ethyl-3-(3'-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide(EDC)/N-hydroxysuccinimide(NHS) method. The results show that the pure water flux increases compared with PEK-COOH membrane. Also, the amino acid modified membranes are resistant to protein adsorption. Furthermore, the flux recovery ratio of His-modified membrane is 80% after three cycles during the bovine serum albumin(BSA) solution filtration process, indicating a high antifouling property.

Key words: ultrafiltration membrane, surface-grafting, antifouling