Polyethersulfone ultrafiltration membranes modified with MAA-EGDMA imprinted polymers for selective atrazine separation

Abstract

The molecular imprinting polymer (MIP) technology is widely known for producing polymers with molecular selectivity in separation and adsorption. The combination of this technology with membrane technology has been extensively explored to maximize the usage of both technologies. To selectively segregate the target molecules, membranes were produced by copolymerizing commercial scaffold monomers with template-containing monomers. The MIP, in combination with the membrane structure, may be utilised as filtering materials for selective separation, which is a fundamental feature of this technology. To produce the imprinted polymer embedded in polyethersulfone (PES) membranes, we employed phase inversion in water as a non-solvent for membrane synthesis. The porosity, mean pore radius, morphology, and contact angle of membranes were studied to investigate the possibility of enhancing the membrane-binding mechanism and the membrane flux. All tests were carried out with a 50 mg·L−1 solution of atrazine (Atr) with a pH of 7.7. The optimal membrane concentration is shown by the 17% PES membrane. It shows the highest value of binding capacity that can be retained with high permeate flux. Higher surface hydrophilicity of MIP blended membranes increases the Atr rejection.