Abstract The membrane fouling is one of the key issues in ultrafiltration (UF) process because it significantly reduces the membrane permeability and increases industrial cost. The challenge is to improve antifouling ability of UF membranes without compromising their separation performance. Here we report a facile strategy to prepare antifouling UF membranes via grafting of positively charged poly(ethylenimine) (PEI) chains onto brominated tetra-methyl polyethersulfone (TM-PES) membranes. The resultant PEI grafted TM-PES membranes show excellent antifouling ability with sufficient water permeability and outstanding separation performance. Typically, the grafted membrane with the bromination degree (BD) of 73% has not only a high water permeability of 72 L m−2 h−1 bar−1 but also rejections of 96.3% for ferritin and 91.4% for bovine serum albumin (BSA). Specially, the water flux can be recovered nearly 90% after protein fouling. The developed strategy is suitable for preparation of antifouling UF membranes. Moreover, the fabricated membranes have a great potential application in biomacromolecule separation.

中文翻译：

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通过聚乙烯亚胺接枝提高聚醚砜超滤膜的防污能力和分离性能

摘要 膜污染是超滤（UF）过程中的关键问题之一，因为它显着降低了膜的渗透性并增加了工业成本。面临的挑战是在不影响其分离性能的情况下提高超滤膜的防污能力。在这里，我们报告了一种通过将带正电荷的聚（乙烯亚胺）（PEI）链接枝到溴化四甲基聚醚砜（TM-PES）膜上来制备防污超滤膜的简便策略。得到的 PEI 接枝 TM-PES 膜显示出优异的防污能力、足够的透水性和出色的分离性能。通常，溴化度 (BD) 为 73% 的接枝膜不仅具有 72 L m-2 h-1 bar-1 的高透水性，而且对铁蛋白和 91 的截留率为 96.3%。4% 的牛血清白蛋白 (BSA)。特别是蛋白质污染后，水通量可恢复近90%。所开发的策略适用于制备防污超滤膜。此外，所制备的膜在生物大分子分离方面具有巨大的潜在应用。