Fabrication of composite membrane with adsorption property and its application to the removal of endocrine disrupting compounds during filtration process

A novel dual-layer composite membrane, which has integrated filtration and adsorption, was prepared from polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane and functionalized polypropylene (PP) non-woven fabric (or PP-g-SA-HEA) support. Stearyl acrylate (SA) and hydroxyethyl acrylate (HEA) were first grafted onto the original PP non-woven fabric using ultraviolet (UV) irradiation graft polymerization. The resulting functionalized PP non-woven fabric was then coated with PVDF membrane via phase inversion. The characterization showed that the surface density and wettability of PP-g-SA-HEA varied with total amount and proportion of the grafted SA and HEA. At appropriate degree of grafting, the composite membrane formed a clear dual layers structure without any delamination and had enhanced mechanical properties. The dual-layer composite membrane was applied in filtration to remove low-concentration endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) from water. The results showed that the membrane was able to effectively remove bisphenol A (BPA) and other EDCs by adsorbing onto the PP-g-SA-HEA support layer. Compared to the single layer PVDF membrane, the filtration performance of the dual-layer composite membrane was not affected. In addition, the used membranes could be simply recovered by washing with mixed deionized water-ethanol solution.