Regenerable planting of multifunctional amine: Regeneration-enhanced antifouling/antiscaling properties and performance of thin film composite nanofiltration membrane

The problems of poly(piperazineamide)-based thin film composite (TFC) nanofiltration (NF) membrane are the fouling, scaling and poor separation performance of uncharged organics and heavy metal ions. Permanent surface modification lowers the fouling/scaling problems. However, these problems persist as the separation progresses. We address these issues by on-demand regenerable planting of polyethyleneimine (PEI) into the polyamide (PA) layer of TFC NF membrane. The regenerable planting is based on the electrostatic interaction among the protonated amine groups of low molecular weight PEI and ionized carboxylic acid groups situated at the relatively inner sites (low dielectric constant) of the PA network. The incorporated PEI chains are stable at the pH range of 3–9. The PEI incorporated membrane exhibits significantly enhanced antifouling/antiscaling property, rejection of heavy metal ions (98–99%) and bisphenol A (BPA, 95%) without much negatively affecting the bivalent anion rejection (Na2SO4, 97.5%) and water permeance (11 L m−2 h−1 bar−1) as compared to the pristine and commercial membranes (55–82%, 50–76% and 98–99% rejections of heavy metal ions, BPA and Na2SO4). Advantageously, PEI chains are removable at pH ≤ 2 or pH ≥ 9.5 without affecting the main PA layer. The multiple removal and re-generation of the membrane have been easily achieved. The flux recovery of the membrane after antifouling/antiscaling tests significantly improved upon intentional removal and reincorporation of PEI. Inherent properties of the modified membrane channels couple with the on-demand regenerable ability show immense promises of the membrane in the separation applications.