Ultrafiltration membranes with ultrafast water transport tuned via different substrates

•PSf membranes with high performance were obtained via adjusting the substrate property.•Ultrahigh water permeability (>13,000 L/m2 h per MPa) was achieved via loose NWFs (36.2 g/cm2) as substrate.•No sacrifice of rejection.•Excellent anti-fouling property was achieved via loose NWFs (36.2 g/cm2).•More porous membranes with larger pore size were obtained by relatively hydrophobic substrate.

A series of self-supporting and substrate-supporting polysulfone (PSf) ultrafiltration (UF) membranes was fabricated using various substrates including glass plates, polypropylene random plates (PPR) and three kinds of non-woven fabrics (NWFs) via a typical phase inversion technique. Effects of the substrate hydrophilicity and structure on the membrane characteristics, morphology, separation and anti-fouling performance were systematically investigated. For self-supporting membranes, compared to glass plates, PPR facilitated more porous membranes and higher pure water permeability (Lp), permeation flux as well as anti-fouling property. NWFs density played an important role in the separation performance of the NWFs-supporting membranes. The resulting membrane with loosest NWFs exhibited an ultrahigh Lp of approximate 13,572 L/m2 h per MPa without any sacrifice of rejection, which significantly outperformed almost all the PSf membranes with Lp of 1000–7000 L/m2 h per MPa in literature. In addition, fouling filtration tests were performed in dead-end mode using humic acids solution followed by physical washing. More reversible rather than irreversible fouling was found in the NWFs-supporting membranes, especially for the membrane with loosest NWFs, indicating an improved anti-fouling property. This work endows the conventional PSf membranes with the outstanding properties such as ultrafast water transport and high flux recovery in an efficient and facile way.