Plasma induced modification of ultrafiltration membranes for viral removal in drinking water treatment

MERCEDES MÉNDEZ; CRUZ, MERCEDES CECILIA; LAURA PALACIOS; RAJAL, VERONICA; CASTRO VIDAURRE, ELZA; JOSÉ CALVO; PEDRO PÁDRANOS

Torremolinos, Málaga

Conferencia; 1. IV International Conference on environmental, industrial and applied microbiology, BioMicroWorld 2011; 2011

Formatex Research Center

Currently the plasma treatment is a tool widely used in surface modification of different materials to optimize their properties against a particular application. In the present work, plasma technique was used to deposit a layer of hydrophilic polymer on asymmetric ultrafiltration (UF) membranes. Theses membranes were  synthesized for  the phase inversion method. Polyethersulfone (PES) membranes were prepared using polyethylene glycol (PEG) as additive, with several values of molecular weight (400, 1000 and 10.000 Da), being dimethylacetamide  (DMAc) the solvent and water as  the non-solvent.  The membranes  synthesized  were  first  submitted to  plasma  of argon  gas,  non  – polymerizable,  and subsequently other plasma atmosphere generated with argon and vapor of acrylic acid (AA). The aim was enhance hydrophilicity and uniform surface pores of the  UF  membranes leading to less fouling and subsequent flux enhancement. The characterization of the membranes before and after the surface modification was done using contact angle to determine its effect on the surface hydrophilicity. Also SEM and AFM images have been used to know the membrane morphology and Liquid-liquid Displacement Porosimetry (LLDP) was used to quantify the pore size distributions.  The  pure water permeability and tests of retention of viral model, bacteriophage PP7 using the host Pseudomonas aeruginosa, were measured showing a proper performance. Finally, the fouling was evaluated by measuring the relative water reduction (RFR). The membranes modified by plasma had high permeability and smaller RFR values after filtration with PP7.