(601a) Searching for Novel Surfaces for New UF Membranes: Amine-Attached Glycidyl Methacrylate Grafting On Poly(ether sulfone) Membrane

Poly(ether sulfone) (PES) is a widely used membrane material because of its thermal and chemical stability and relatively low cost.  However, the loss of flux and selectivity over time due to protein fouling is a vital issue to address pertaining to bioseparation with PES membranes.  The High Throughput Platform Photo-induced Graft Polymerization (HTP-PGP) technique, recently developed and examined by the Belfort group, is a fast, statistically reliable and reproducible membrane surface modification and analysis method.  Using the HTP-PGP method, we grafted glycidyl methacrylate (GMA), which is a fouling-resistant material that can confer PES membrane desired surface characteristics due to the presence of the epoxy group and its reactivity.  The epoxy ring reacts with non-tertiary amine groups of foreign monomers.  The reaction results in grafting a wide variety of amine monomers which otherwise would be difficult to graft on PES.  By using the post-reaction on PES, we were able to expand the possibility of the HTP-PGP method to examine non-PES reacting species in a very fast and reproducible manner.  In this work, we present fouling resistant properties of 25 new amine-grafted surfaces examined by lysozyme (pI 11) and bovine serum albumin (pI 4.7) to represent positive and negative feed at physiological pH (7.4), respectably.  Fouling resistance was examined by measuring filtration flux before and after fouling, and measuring surface adsorption by BCA assay.  Surface characteristics of the “winning” monomers of desired properties are examined by FTIR-ATR and wettability studies, and their fouling resistances are compared with PEG, which is a ‘gold standard’ for membrane surface modification.