surface modification of polypropylene hollow fiber ultrafiltration membrane by plasma and polyethylene glycol

Creating the hydrophilic surface is a valuable procedure to reduce membrane fouling. this work aims to improve the surface hydrophilicity of the polypropylene (pp) hollow fiber (hf) ultrafiltration membrane. for this reason, first, the surface of the pp membrane was treated by the plasma of the oxygen-argon gas. then polyethylene glycol (peg) was linked to the activated surface of the pp membrane using isocyanate. the performance results of the modified pp hf membrane compared with the raw pp hf membrane indicated an increase of more than two times for the pure water flux and the flux recovery of more than 1.5%. also, the result of the water contact angles showed a decrease from 93 to 79o. it means that the surface hydrophilicity of the modified pp membrane has improved due to the hydrophilic functional groups of peg on the membrane surface.