A Novel Anti-fouling Polymer-Ceramic Composite Membrane by Graft Polymerization of Acrylic Acid

Hydrophilic surface modification of ceramic membrane was performed by grafting polymerization using acrylic acid. The modified membrane was characterized by FT-IR. It indicated that poly (acrylic acid) (PAA) was successfully grafted onto the membrane surface. The effects of polymerization conditions on the performances of the pH responsive membrane were investigated. The results showed that pH sensitivity of the grafted membranes increased with monomer concentration, as the monomer concentration <; 131.25 g/L. The anti-fouling performances for the different PAA-grafted membranes were assessed by the filtration of Bovine serum albumin solution (BSA). All modified membranes showed higher rejection and lower permeability than unmodified membrane for the BSA solution. PAA-grafted membranes showed higher relative flux, flux recovery, and lower reduction of flux, which revealed that the anti-fouling performance of PAA-grafted membranes was improved. Furthermore, the change of pH can result in a varying fouling, and PAA-grafted membranes showed the smallest fouling at pH 8.0. Therefore, PAA-grafted membranes may resist protein fouling at high pH application.