Characterization of Surface Modification of Polyethersulfone Membrane

Surface modification of polyethersulfone (PES) membrane surfaces using UV/ozone pretreatment with subsequent grafting and interfacial polymerization on membrane surface was investigated in order to improve the resistance of membrane surface to protein adsorption. The surface modifications were evaluated in terms of hydrophilicity, chemical composition of the surface and static protein adsorption. In both methods, poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and chitosan were chosen as hydrophilic polymers to chemically modify the commercial virgin PES membrane to render it more hydrophilic as these materials have excellent hydrophilic property. Modified PES membranes were characterized by contact angle and XPS. Contact angles of modified PES membranes were reduced by 19 to 58% of that of the virgin PES membrane. PES membrane modified with PEG shows higher wettability than other hydrophilic materials with the highest contact angle reduction shown for UV/ozone pretreated, PEG grafted PES membrane surface. In general, XPS spectra supported that the PES membranes were successfully modified by both grafting with UV/ozone pretreatment and interfacial polymerization methods. The results of the static protein adsorption experiments showed all surface modifications led to reduction in protein adsorption on PES membranes; the highest protein adsorption reduction occurred with membrane modified by UV/ozone pretreatment followed by PES grafting, which corresponded to the highest contact angle reduction. However, there seems to be no clear correlation between contact angle reduction and reduction in protein adsorption in the case that involved chitosan. Nevertheless, membranes modified with chitosan do show higher reduction in protein adsorption than membranes modified with other materials under the same conditions.