Hydraulic permeability and molecular weight cutoff (MWCO) performance tuning of polysulfone (PSf) ultrafiltration (UF) membrane was attained via surface modification with a tethered layer of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA). Surface nano-structured (SNS) PAA layer was synthesized onto base PSf UF membranes by atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) surface activation followed by graft polymerization (GP) of acrylic acid (AA). Through a systematic study, it was shown that effective SNS-PAA-PSf UF membrane performance tuning was feasible by adjustments of APP and graft polymerization conditions. It was shown, for the first time, that SNS-PAA-PSf membranes can be synthesized with a range of hydraulic permeability (spanning a factor of 1.1–2.6 in magnitude) for a given MWCO, or a range of MWCO (spanning a factor of 1.5–2.3 in magnitude) for a given hydraulic permeability, thereby overcoming the hydraulic permeability-MWCO tradeoff.

聚砜（PSf）超滤（UF）膜的水渗透性和分子量截断（MWCO）性能调节是通过使用聚丙烯酸（PAA）的束缚层进行表面改性而实现的。通过大气压等离子体（APP）表面活化，然后接枝丙烯酸（AA）的接枝聚合（GP），将表面纳米结构（SNS）PAA层合成到基础PSf UF膜上。通过系统的研究表明，通过调节APP和接枝聚合条件，有效的SNS-PAA-PSf UF膜性能调节是可行的。首次表明，对于给定的MWCO，SNS-PAA-PSf膜可以合成为具有一定范围的水力渗透性（跨度为1.1-2.6）。对于给定的水力渗透率，MWCO（幅度为1.5-2.3的因数），从而克服了水力渗透率与MWCO的权衡。