Novel negatively charged membrane adsorbers made using a combination of photopolymerization and immersion precipitation

Abstract

A novel method combining a traditional immersion precipitation process for making membranes with photopolymerization and crosslinking of functional monomers included in the casting solution was used to prepare asymmetric polyethersulfone membranes with submicron particles incorporating glycidyl methacrylate copolymer. In order to introduce sulfonic groups, the epoxide rings of glycidyl methacrylate were opened using two methods. The first method was functionalization with sodium sulfite, and the second was functionalization with sulfuric acid and then grafting with 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid. The obtained membranes were characterized using infrared spectroscopy, conductometric titration and water permeability measurements. Scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy were used to investigate the surface morphology and topology of the membranes. Dynamic adsorption of rhodamine B as a model dye was used to demonstrate the suitability of these novel membranes for membrane adsorption since the adsorption capacity for dye cations was much better for the membranes functionalized with sodium sulfite and the membranes grafted with 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid compared to the non-functionalized membranes.