Core-shell antibacterial conjugated nanostarch incorporated PVDF membrane for fast and efficient dye separation

In this work, nano-starch particles were first prepared via a state-of-the-art and facile strategy based on Click reaction. Starch is considered a cheap, green, eco-friendly reagent, and showed high adherence and compatibility toward polymeric molecules but its large size means poor miscibility with other polymers and it can be easily contaminated with bacteria. Dopamine, thioglycolic acid, and polyethyleneimine (PEI) were used in this work to solve the mentioned problems, and as a result, core-shell anti-bacterial nanostarch particles were synthesized. The prepared core-shell antibacterial nanostarch was incorporated into the polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane matrix to enhance its hydrophilicity and separation performance. The optimized membrane showed a high dye rejection (99.8 ± 1.0%, 99.1 ± 1.3%, 99.6 ± 1.1%, 95.8 ± 1.4%, and 97.9 ± 1.3%, for Methyl green, Methylene blue, Crystal violet, Reactive red 120, and Direct yellow, respectively), water permeation rate reached to 17.0 ± 0.1 L.m−2.h−1.bar−1 indicating 2.3 times improvement, superior antifouling performance, and riveting long-term stability. Moreover, the anti-bacterial performance of the prepared membranes evaluated and demonstrated that PEI could significantly enhance the membrane's anti-bacterial performance.