Polypropylene composite hollow fiber ultrafiltration membranes with an acrylic hydrogel surface by in situ ultrasonic wave-assisted polymerization for dye removal

In this study, polypropylene composite hollow fiber membrane with an acrylic hydrogel layer was fabricated successfully by in situ ultrasonic wave-assisted polymerization. The ultrasonic irradiation can significantly improve the grafting efficiency of acrylic acid on the membrane surface. The modified membranes were characterized on the basis of physicochemical characteristics, permeation performance and antifouling property. The results revealed that the pure water flux of modified membranes was significantly increased when the graft density was lower than 0.82mgcm(-2), due to the improvement of hydrophilicity. Interestingly, the optimized membrane PPM1.49 could efficiently remove organic dyes from aqueous solution, showing retentions of 99.5 and 98.7% to Congo red and methylthionine chloride, respectively. Meanwhile, its flux recovery ratio was elevated from 68.0 to 92.0% using bovine serum albumin aqueous solution as a foulant compared with the pristine membrane. These promising results indicate that modified membranes developed in this study are potentially applicable for dye removal from wastewater. (c) 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 136, 47099.