Abstract
A commercial thin film composite (TFC) polyamide (PA) reverse osmosis membrane was grafted with 3-sulfopropyl methacrylate potassium (SPMK) to produce PA-g-SPMK by atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The grafting of PA was done at varied concentrations of SPMK, and its effect on the surface composition and morphology was studied by Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), optical profilometry, and contact angle analysis. The grafting of hydrophilic ionically charged PSPMK polymer brushes having acrylate and sulfonate groups resulted in enhanced hydrophilicity rendering a reduction of contact angle from 58° of pristine membrane sample labeled as MH0 to 10° for a modified membrane sample labeled as MH3. Due to the increased hydrophilicity, the flux rate rises from 57.1 L m−2 h−1 to 71.2 L m−2 h−1, and 99% resistance against microbial adhesion (Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus) was obtained for MH3 after modification
Highlights
The population of the world is exponentially increasing day by day
The higher availability of monomer molecules brings about suitable conditions, which assists chain propagation for the grafting of a thin film composite (TFC) PA reverse osmosis membrane [27]
The results suggested that the PA g PSPMK can be recommended as a promising material for protecting the TFC reverse osmosis (RO) membrane against bacterial attack
Summary
Demand for the fresh water increases with the rise in population rate and industrialization [1]. Well-known contaminants in the drinking water are bacteria, viruses, pesticides, toxic metals, fertilizers, industrial effluents, and organic matter, leading to epidemic and major water-borne diseases [3]. Different approaches have been employed for water disinfection from a variety of contaminants in the past few decades such as precipitation and coagulation, distillation, adsorption, ion exchange, catalytic processes, bioremediation, magnetic separation, and membrane water treatment technologies [4,5,6]. Membrane technology has been commonly used for various water treatment applications because of its compactness, flexibility, high efficiency, low operational cost, and simplification of process, rejecting several contaminants that range from microns to angstroms [7]
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