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

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 epoxide rings of glycidyl methacrylate were opened using two methods. The first method was functionalization with sodium sulfite, and the second method was functionalization with sulfuric acid and then grafting with 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid. 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 membrane. Dynamic adsorption of Rhodamine B as a model dye was used to demonstrate suitability of these novel membranes for membrane adsorption since the adsorption capacity for dye cations was much better for both functionalized membrane with sodium sulfite and grafted membrane with 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid compared to the nonfunctionalized membrane.