Fabrication of Hemocompatible Polyethersulfone Derivatives by One-Step Radiation-Induced Homogeneous Polymerization

Abstract

Polyethersulfone (PES) and its derivatives are chemical resistant, thermally stable and excellent processable, which have been widely used in filtration and hemodialysis fields. However, the hydrophobicity and bioinert of pristine PES limit the application in hemodialysis. In this study, PES derivatives were successfully prepared in homogeneous phase system via gamma irradiation polymerization of sodium styrene sulfonate (SSS), acrylic acid (AA) and N-pyrrolidone (NVP). The obtained derivatives of PES-g-SSS, PES-g-NVP, PES-g-AA/SSS, PES-g-NVP/SSS, and PES-g-AA/NVP/SSS could be directly used to prepare membranes using dimethylacetamide as solvent by phase inversion method. Then, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscope (SEM), water contact angle, and surface zeta potential analyses were used to characterize the structure of modified PES membranes. The results of ultrafiltration experiment showed that the water flux increased 104.4% for PES-g-AA/SSS and 103.7% for PES-g-AA/NVP/SSS compared with the pristine PES. Moreover, the contact angle, protein adsorption and platelet adhesion decreased in all modified membranes, especially the PES-g-AA/NVP/SSS membrane has no platelet adhesion at all. The hemocompatibility of the membranes was further tested by complement activation, clotting time and hemolysis ratio, which showed the modified membranes have good hemocompatibility. The proposed one-step radiation-induced homogeneous polymerization approach opens a new route to fabricate advanced PES derivatives as blood-contacting materials.