SYNOPSISTo enhance the degree of grafting, homografting copolymerization of 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate ( HEMA) onto nylon 4 using a chemical initiator has been attempted. The factors that affect the grafting copolymerization are the concentration of reactants, reaction time, and temperature. The dialysis permeabilities of solutes, water content, surface energy, mechanical properties, and blood compatibility of the membrane were investigated. Under the same reaction conditions, the degree of grafting by the homografting method is remarkably higher than that of the heterografting method for the nylon 4-HEMA grafting system. The dialysis permeabilities of NaCl, vitamin BIZ, and ovalbumin of the homografted membrane with a 14.8% degree of grafting are 2.760, 0.392, and 0.073 X cm2/min, respectively. These permeabilities are higher than the corresponding ones of ungrafted nylon 4 membrane. The mol ratios of adsorbed fibrinogen/albumin ( F / A ) of the heterografted membranes were found to decrease from 0.53 to 0.33, and the surface energy, to increase from 40.6 to 46.4 dyn/cm with the degree of grafting in the range of 12.5-29.9%, and their relationship is not remarkable for the homografted membranes for which the mol ratios of F / A are about 0.22-0.32 with the degree of grafting in the range of 14.8-103.8%. Observed from scanning electron micrographs of the membrane surface, denseness was found to be important to improve blood compatibility. Based on the dialysis permeabilities of solutes and the blood compatibility observed in this study, the homografted nylon 41 HEMA membrane can be considered as a hemodialysis material.