Tannic acid coating and in situ deposition of silver nanoparticles to improve the antifouling properties of an ultrafiltration membrane

ABSTRACT The construction of antifouling membranes has been a desirable approach for addressing membrane‐fouling issues in the ultrafiltration (UF) process. Antifouling means antiadhesive and antimicrobial; however, few researchers have achieved both properties in a facile and effective manner. In this article, we report a direct tannic acid (TA) coating method combined with the in situ deposition of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs); this was used to improve the antifouling properties of a positively charged polymeric UF membrane. The results show that the TA–Ag NP modified membranes showed improved protein resistance (flux recovery rate = 71.2% after modification vs 17.8% before modification) and less attachment of bacteria ( Escherichia coli K1) on the membrane surface and reduced cell viability in the resulting bacterial suspension (reduced by ≥90%) because of the combined antimicrobial properties of both the TA and Ag NPs. This indicated that our modification method was promising for UF membrane antifouling applications. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136 , 47314.