Antifouling, high-flux nanofiltration membranes enabled by dual functional polydopamine

A facile method for fabricating antifouling and high-flux nanofiltration (NF) membranes was developed based on bioinspired polydopamine (PDA). Polyethersulfone (PES) ultrafiltration membrane as the support was first deposited a thin PDA layer and then chemically modified by a new kind of fluorinated polyamine via Michael addition reaction between fluorinated polyamine and quinone groups of PDA. PDA coating significantly reduced the pore sizes of the PES support membrane and endowed the NF membrane with high separation performance (flux about 46.1 L/(m(2) h) under 0.1 MPa, molecular weight cutoff of about 780 Da). The grafted fluorinated polyamine on the PDA layer could form low free energy microdomains to impede the accumulation/coalescence of foulants and lower the adhesion force between foulants and the membrane, rendering the membrane surface with prominent fouling-release property. When foulant solutions (including bovine serum albumin, oil and humic acid) were filtered, the resultant NF membrane exhibited excellent antifouling properties (the minimal value of total flux decline ratio was ∼8.9%, and the flux recovery ratio reached 98.6%). It is also found that the structural stability of the NF membrane could be significantly enhanced due to the covalent bond and other intermolecular interactions between the PDA layer and the PES support.