Engineering antifouling membrane with surface segregation agents bearing crosslinked low surface energy segments

Low surface energy material has been considered as the promising material to solve membrane fouling owing to its superior fouling releasing ability, however, its low water wettability would result in decrease of water permeability, which limits its broad application in fabrication of high-performance membranes. Herein, we prepared the amphiphilic crosslinked surface segregation agents based on hydrophilic polyethylene glycol methyl acrylate (PEGMA) segments and crosslinked low surface energy poly(hexafluorobutyl methacrylate) (PHFBM) segments to fabricate antifouling membrane via nonsolvent induced phase separation. The surface segregation of the hydrophilic segments could drag the low surface energy segments onto membrane surface, meanwhile, the crosslinked structure of the low surface energy segment could influence the phase inversion to form a loose separation layer. As a result, amphiphilic membrane surface was constructed with hydrophilic microdomains and low surface energy microdomains as well as underwater superoleophobicity, and the flux of as-prepared membrane was increased slightly with the flux recovery ratio improved from 69.3 % to 92.8 % for separation of BSA solution. Meanwhile, after three cycles of filtration, the flux recovery ratio could maintain a high level. Our study may offer a new route to utilization of low surface energy materials for fabricating antifouling membranes.