Appearance of poly(ethylene oxide) segments in the polyamide layer for antifouling nanofiltration membranes

A novel approach was developed in the present work that antifouling composite nanofiltration membranes were directly and efficiently fabricated with antifouling ultrafiltration membranes. Pluronic F127/polyethersulfone (PES) ultrafiltration membranes with enriched poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) segments on the surfaces were selected as supporting layers and piperaine (PIP) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) were used as monomers to fabricate the composite polyamide nanofiltration membranes. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurement showed that there were higher O contents on the surfaces of nanofiltration membranes, the high solution O1s core-level XPS spectra gave important information that the appearance of PEO segments in the polyamide layer. The water permeability and rejection property of the composite nanofiltration membrane with Pluronic F127 in substrate were better than that without Pluronic F127. Three different pollution systems were chosen to prove the excellent antifouling property of the composite nanofiltration membranes, whose water fluxes were completely recovered by simple water washing.

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► Antifouling nanofiltration membranes fabricated by interfacial polymerization with antifouling ultrafiltration membranes.
► The appearance of PEO segments on the polyamide thin film.
► Very lower flux decline and complete flux recovery after water cleaning.