Abstract
In order to prepare poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) hollow fiber membrane with enough antifouling properties, several types of vinyl chloride (VC) copolymers were used as blending polymers at the membrane fabrication. Interactions of different VC copolymer films with BSA were evaluated by using quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D). Among the studied copolymers, vinyl chloride-co-poly(ethylene glycol)methyl ether methacrylate (VC-co-PEGMA) showed the lowest interaction with BSA. Blend hollow fiber membranes with different VC-co-PEGMA contents were prepared via nonsolvent induced phase separation (NIPS) method and applied for BSA filtration. While by increasing the VC-co-PEGMA content, membrane mechanical strength decreased, water permeability of the prepared membranes increased sharply. BSA filtration results revealed that when PVC over VC-co- PEGMA ratio reached to 50%, membrane showed good antifouling properties. Thus, blend hollow fiber membrane prepared by using VC-co-PEGMA can be potentially applied for membrane process to reduce the fouling.
