Carboxymethyl chitosan hydrogel network constructed PES ultrafiltration membrane to separate bovine serum albumin from collagen

Ultrafiltration membrane for purification of proteins represents a significant research challenge. In order to improve the uniformity of membrane pores, carboxymethyl chitosan hydrogel (TB-g-MC) grafted by methacrylic anhydride and 2, 3, 4-trihydroxybenzaldehyd was proposed to construct polyethersulfone (PES) ultrafiltration membrane with crosslinked network. TB-g-MC with better hydrophilicity could effectively slow down the phase transition process, which led to more uniform membrane pores. The water flux of the PES/TB-g-MC membrane arrived at 880.2 L·m⁻²·h⁻¹, three times higher than that of the pristine membrane. The rejection of bovine serum albumin (BSA) was 99.5 % with the collagen permeability of 99.9 %, which showed that the developed membrane had narrow pore size distribution and better separation performance. Furthermore, it exhibited noteworthy anti-fouling characteristics with the flux recovery of 90 %. The proposed membrane with hydrogel network structure will be prospective for protein purification and production in biomedical field.