Construction of Antifouling Membrane Surfaces through Layer-by-Layer Self-Assembly of Lignosulfonate and Polyethyleneimine

Abstract

Lignin is the second most abundant and low-cost natural polymer, but its high value-added utilization is still lack of effective and economic ways. In this paper, waste lignosulfonate (LS) was introduced to fabricate antifouling membrane surfaces via layer-by-layer self-assembly with polyethyleneimine (PEI). The LS/PEI multilayers were successfully deposited on the polysulfone (PSf) membrane, as demonstrated by ATR-FTIR, XPS, Zeta potential measurements, AFM, and SEM. Meanwhile, the effect of the number of bilayers was investigated in detail on the composition, morphologies, hydrophilicity, and antifouling performance of the membrane surface. As a result, with the bilayer numbers increase to 5, the PSf membrane shows smooth surface with small roughness, and its water contact angle reduces to 44.1°, indicating the improved hydrophilicity. Accordingly, the modified PSf membrane with 5 LS/PEI bilayers repels the adsorption of protein, resulting in good antifouling performance. This work provides a green, facile, and low-cost strategy to construct antifouling membrane surfaces.

Anti-Foulant Ultrafiltration Polymer Composite Membranes Incorporated with Composite Activated Carbon/Chitosan and Activated Carbon/Thiolated Chitosan with Enhanced Hydrophilicity

“…For calculation of porosity, gravimetric analysis was done using Equation (2). Membranes were first dried at 50 • C for 3 h to remove any moisture and then weighed (W d ).…”

“…One of the major factors that govern the permeability rate for membranes is their wettability. The higher the wettability, the higher hydrophilic character, and the higher the enhanced flux rate and anti-fouling property [2]. This property is evaluated by the measurement of the contact angle.…”

“…For this purpose, membrane technology has shown a lot of promise. Membranes are mostly used in separation technology that aims towards the separation of one component present in the mixture from the other one by hindering its permeation [2][3][4]. One of the fractionation techniques used in membrane technology is ultrafiltration [5].…”

Development and Characterization of Membranes with PVA Containing Silver Particles: A Study of the Addition and Stability

“…It was also demonstrated that the success of the surface modification between the two substrates is significantly improved by increasing the hydrophilicity of membrane surfaces using methods such as grafting, chemical cross-linking, or chemical reaction of the surface. This change reduces the adsorption of foulant by inhibiting non-specific binding between the membrane surface and retained molecules, particularly proteins [ 19 , 25 ]. In fact, the ideal membranes for water purification (UF or RO) are hydrophilic semi-permeable membranes that allow for high flux while being highly selective through the membrane [ 26 ].…”

Continuous Journey Toward Polymer Applications

“…While 3D printing, as a newly emerged technology, attracts attention from a lot of researchers as a method with which to explore new ways to fabricate polymeric devices with enhanced performance and/or new functions [1][2][3][4][5], sensors and actuators (including wearable/flexible electronic devices) still appear to be the major focus in polymer applications [1,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Polymers with special features/functions, such as stimulus-responsive and shape memory [16,17], self-healing [18][19][20][21][22], and assembly [23][24][25][26][27] are being continuously developed, along with analytical/numerical studies [28][29][30], in order to capture the fundamentals for efficient and/or optimized engineering design. Of course, the above mentioned are only parts of the topics of the published papers in 2019 under this section, which focuses on polymer applications.…”