Plasma graft polymerization to develop low-fouling membranes grafted with poly(2-methoxyethylacrylate)

We developed low-fouling membranes modified with poly(2-methoxyethylacrylate) (PMEA) by employing plasma graft polymerization, and demonstrated that the PMEA-grafted membranes had excellent low-fouling properties against 1000 ppm of BSA aqueous solution. By employing plasma graft polymerization, the grafting amount of PMEA can be arbitrarily tuned by controlling the grafting reaction conditions, and this grafting amount affects the low-fouling property: the membrane with a grafting amount of 0.257 mg cm−2 had a better low-fouling property than that with the lower grafting amount of 0.075 mg cm−2. In particular, the membrane with a grafting amount of 0.257 mg cm−2 never fouled, even when filtering 1000 ppm of BSA solution, and it maintained its initial flux when the permeation flux was set at 4 × 10−6 m3 m−2 s−1.

► Poly(2-methoxyethylacrylate) (PMEA) was grafted to develop low-fouling membranes.
► Plasma graft polymerization was employed to graft PMEA for the first time.
► The grafting amount of PMEA was tuned by changing the reaction conditions.
► Grafted membranes showed low-fouling properties against 1000 ppm of BSA solution.
► The effect of the grafting amount on the low-fouling properties was studied.