Blending organic copolymer (or homopolymer) and inorganic nanoparticle have been widely used (separately or simultaneously) for optimizing membrane pore structure and surface functionality. However, the prepared membranes suffer from degrade stability and insufficient integrity due to the high solubility or incompatibility of the blending additives. In this work, an organic-inorganic nanocomposite (i.e., PLA-TiO2) was designed, and employed for PSF membrane preparation. The FTIR and XPS analysis confirmed that the bidentate chelating dominated the bonding mechanism between PLA and TiO2. The resultant PSF/PLA-TiO2 membranes possessed highly porous surface with narrowed pore size distribution, demonstrating the strong pore forming ability of PLA-TiO2 for membrane preparations. Moreover, owe to the distinct inorganic-organic molecular conformation, the PLA-TiO2 exhibited enhanced stability and dispersibility within the PSF substance, which endow the membrane long-acting hydrophilicity and UV responsiveness. Given the UV responsiveness that introduced by PLA-TiO2, UV-assisted strategies (UV-F and UV-C) were designed to further mitigate membrane fouling. The fouling analysis indicated that both the reversible fouling and the irreversible fouling were reduced in UV-C process, signifying the synergistic effect between photocatalysis and hydraulics in membrane fouling mitigation. The enhanced membrane performance and the efficient preparation process highlights the potential of PLA-TiO2 in membrane modifications.

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