Enhanced hydrophilic polysulfone hollow fiber membranes with addition of iron oxide nanoparticles

Membranes are at the heart of hemodialysis treatment functions to remove excess metabolic waste such as urea. However, membranes made up of pure polymers and hydrophilic polymers such as polyvinylpyrrolidone suffer problems of low flux and bio-incompatibility. Hence, this study aimed to improve polysulfone (PSf) membrane surface properties by the addition of iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs). The membrane surface properties and separation performance of neat PSf membrane and membrane filled with IONPs at a loading of 0.2 wt% were investigated and compared. The membranes were characterized in terms of morphology, pure water permeability (PWP) and protein rejection using bovine serum albumin (BSA). A decrease in contact angle value from 66.62° to 46.23° for the PSf/IONPs membrane indicated an increase in surface hydrophilicity that caused positive effects on the PWP and BSA rejection of the membrane. The PWP increased by 40.74% to 57.04 L m−2 h−1 bar−1 when IONPs were incorporated due to the improved interaction with water molecules. Furthermore, the PSf/IONPs membrane rejected 96.43% of BSA as compared to only 91.14% by the neat PSf membrane. Hence, the incorporation of IONPs enhanced the PSf hollow fiber membrane hydrophilicity and consequently improved the separation performance of the membrane for hemodialysis application. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry