9560822 Swanson This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop reagents and methods for surface modifying membranes with hydrophilic photoactivatable polymers to reduce fouling. One of the greatest problems, particularly with ultrafiltration (UF) membranes, is fouling, which is largely caused by solute interactions with the membranes. Fouling reduces the flux and use life of membranes and increases the solute retention, thus changing the selectivity during use. The primary goal of this project is to achieve greatly reduced fouling with minimal or no reduction in flux. The polymers to be developed are expected to be useful for UF as well as for microfiltration (MF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. The primary types of membranes to be used during the Phase I project will be polysulfone UF membranes; however, the method is expected to be useful for other types of membranes, including MF and RO membranes as well as membranes made from other materials (e.g., polycarbonate and PVDF). The method for modifying the membranes involves synthesis of hydrophilic polymers containing photoactivatable moieties (e.g., benzophenone derivatives) at one end and hydrophilic polymer chains at the other end. These polymers are expected to have surfactant characteristics such that they will wet hydrophobic membrane surfaces from aqueous solutions and orient with the photogroups associated with the membrane surface and the hydrophilic ends oriented away from the membrane surface. They will then be covalently coupled to the membrane surfaces photochemically. The performance characteristics of the modified membranes will be compared with other commercially available similar membranes for fouling characteristics. Membrane filtration is an important technique for many industrial processes. However, fouling limits the usefulness of ultrafiltration and other membrane separations, including reverse osmosis and microfiltration. Success of this project is expected to make an important contrib ution to improving efficiencies of membrane filtrations by reducing fouling of membranes made from hydrophobic materials such as polysulfone and polyvinylidene difluoride. This surface modification technology is expected to have significant commercial potential for improving membranes.
