A novel UV-initiated modification process for fabricating high-performance TFC RO membrane

Thin film composite reverse osmosis (TFC RO) membrane technology has seen widespread application in seawater/brackish water desalination and wastewater treatment. However, there are still problems such as unsatisfactory perm-selectivity and anti-fouling properties, and low feasibility of membrane manufacturing process. In view of the above problems, a novel UV-initiated modification process integrating with "Semi-interpenetrating polymer networks construction" and "Photo-Fries rearrangement initiation" is proposed. TFC RO membranes with both high perm-selectivity and anti-fouling properties were prepared by introducing polymerizable molecules (MAM, SA, AM) into the aqueous phase and conducting UV irradiation during interfacial polymerization (IP) process. The results showed that under the brackish water test conditions, the water flux and NaCl rejection of the optimal modified membrane (MAM-UV) were 77.5 L m−2 h−1 and 99.44%, respectively, which are 23.8% and 0.2% higher than those of the unmodified membrane (VIR-RO), respectively. The results of the anti-fouling test showed that MAM-UV exhibited good anti-fouling properties against both bovine serum albumin (BSA) and lysozyme (LYZ). In addition, the novel UV-initiated modification process proposed in this paper has broad prospects for industrial application because of its simple operation and easy scale-up.