Antifouling ultrafiltration membrane fabricated from poly (arylene ether ketone) bearing hydrophilic hydroxyl groups

Abstract

ABSTRACTA new kind of membrane formation polymer, cardo poly(arylene ether ketone) bearing hydrophilic hydroxyl groups (PEK‐OH) was synthesized from the biphenol monomer 2‐(2‐hydroxyethyl)‐3, 3‐bis (4‐hydroxyphenyl)‐isoindolin‐1‐one (PPH‐OH), and 4, 4′‐difluorodiphenylketone. PEK‐OH asymmetric ultrafiltration membranes were prepared using the immersion coagulation phase inversion method. The PEK‐OH membrane prepared using the optimized conditions exhibited a pure water flux of 516 ± 18 L·m−2·h−1 and a 99.1 ± 1.4% rejection of bovine serum albumin (BSA) at an operating pressure of 0.1 MPa. The contact angle of PEK‐OH membrane was 66.0 ± 2.4 lower than these of the PEK‐C membrane (87.0 ± 2.8°, prepared from polymer PEK‐C under the same membrane formation condition as PEK‐OH membrane) and the UE50 membrane (84.0 ± 1.6°, a commercial PES ultrafiltration membrane). The amount of BSA protein adsorbed to the PEK‐OH membrane under static condition was measured to be 3.12 μg·cm−2, which was greatly lower than that of 88.71 μg·cm−2 and 74.40 μg·cm−2 for the PEK‐C and the UE50 ultrafiltration membranes, respectively. Under dynamic filtration of BSA experiments, the PEK‐OH ultrafiltration membrane showed a 78.3% water flux recovery ratio, while only a 39.7% for the PEK‐C membrane and 46.5% for UE50 membrane were detected in the first cycle. After three cycles of BSA and LYZ filtration, the flux recovery ratio of PEK‐OH ultrafiltration membrane changed to be stable at 75% and 73%, while that of PEK‐C and UE50 ultrafiltration membranes remained declining gradually. Thus, hydrophilic PEK‐OH improves antifouling membrane property. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 132, 42809.