Effect of surface pattern formation on membrane fouling and its control in phase inversion process

This paper presents a simple method to form a nano-sized pattern on the surface of mixed matrix membranes with an increasing amount of nanoparticles incorporated in the polymer matrix through phase inversion technique. The fouling by bovine serum albumin (BSA) ultrafiltration could be mitigated when the feed protein solution flowed to the direction perpendicular to the patterned lines while the fouled surface was washed more effectively when the flow was parallel to the patterned direction. The proposed method allows pattern to be controlled on the surface of a large membrane area at a lower cost. Also, hydrophilicity of the membrane surface can be increased by adding hydrophilic nanoparticles, which also contributes to fouling mitigation.