‘Green’ fabrication of PVC ultrafiltration membranes with high-flux and improved hydrophilicity by in-situ interpenetration of hydrophilic crosslinking networks

High-flux polyvinyl chloride (PVC) membranes with hydrophilic interpenetrating networks were fabricated by a ‘green’ (without toxic initiator) in-situ method in this study. The interpenetration between the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) molecules and the hydrophilic network was formed during the phase separation process, where the cross-linking was initialized by water in a solidification bath between siloxanes in aminopropyltrimethoxysilane-b-poly (ethylene glycol) diglycidyl ether synthesized in the PVC dissolution process. From the reconstruction of the PVC membrane, high hydrophilicity and porosity, and narrow pore size distribution have been achieved. As results, compared to the pristine membrane. the pure water flux was increased 17 times to 1177.4 L m−2 h−1, the flux recovery rate was increased by 15.9 %, and the strength was also increased slightly.