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

MERCEDES L. MÉNDEZ; MERCEDES C. CRUZ; LAURA PALACIO; VERÓNICA B. RAJAL; ELZA CASTRO VIDAURRE; JOSÉ I. CALVO; PEDRO PRÁDANOS

Málaga

Congreso; VI International Conference on Environmental, Industrial, and Applied Microbiology.; 2011

Currently the plasma treatment is a tool widely used for 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. These membranes were synthesized by the phase inversion method. Polyethersulfone membranes were prepared using several molecular weight (400, 1000, and 10,000 Da) polyethylene glycol as additive, with dimethylacetamide as the solvent and water as the non-solvent. The membranes synthesized were first subjected to argon plasma, non–polymerizable, and then to other plasma atmosphere generated with argon and vapor of acrylic acid. The aims were to enhance hydrophilicity and to obtain 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 performed by contact angle to determine the effect on the surface hydrophilicity. Also, Scanning electron microscopy and Atomic force microscopy images allowed the evaluation of the membrane morphology and Liquid-liquid Displacement Porosimetry was used to quantify the pore size distributions. The pure water permeability and tests of retention of the viral model PP7 (phage of Pseudomonas aeruginosa), were measured showing a good 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.