Self-Healing Hydrogel Pore-Filled Water Filtration Membranes

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• 作者：Bezawit A. Getachew ; Sang-Ryoung Kim ; Jae-Hong Kim
• 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January 17, 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：51
• 期：2
• 页码：905-913
• 全文大小：595K
• ISSN：1520-5851

文摘

Damages to water filtration membranes during installation and operation are known to cause detrimental loss of the product water quality. Membranes that have the ability to self-heal would recover their original rejection levels autonomously, bypassing the need for costly integrity monitoring and membrane replacement practices. Herein, we fabricated hydrogel pore-filled membranes via in situ graft polymerization of 2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonic acid (AMPS) onto microporous poly(ether sulfone) (PES) substrates and successfully demonstrated their self-healing ability. Covalent attachment of the hydrogel to the substrate was essential for stable membrane performance. The membranes autonomously restore their particle rejection up to 99% from rejection levels as low as 30% after being physically damaged. We attribute the observed self-healing property to swelling of the pore-filling hydrogel into the damage site, strong hydrogen bonding, and molecular interdiffusion. The results of this study show that hydrogel pore-filled membranes are a promising new class of materials for fabricating self-healing membranes.