Chelating polymer modified P84 nanofiltration (NF) hollow fiber membranes for high efficient heavy metal removal

High performance nanofiltration (NF) membranes for heavy metal removal have been molecularly designed by adsorption of chelating polymers containing negatively charged functional groups such as poly (acrylic acid-co-maleic acid) (PAM), poly (acrylic acid) (PAA) and poly (dimethylamine-co-epichlorohydrin-co-ethylenediamine) (PDMED) on the positively charged polyethyleneimine (PEI) cross-linked P84 hollow fiber substrates. Not only do these chelating polymers change the membrane surface charge and pore size, but also provide an extra mean to remove heavy metal ions through adsorption in addition to traditional steric effect and Donnan exclusion. The adsorbed membranes have comparable water permeability and superior rejections to heavy metals, for instance, Pb(NO₃)₂, CuSO₄, NiCl₂, CdCl₂, ZnCl₂, Na₂Cr₂O₇ and Na₂HAsO₄, with rejections higher than 98%. The membranes also display excellent rejections to mixed ions with rejections more than 99%. The newly developed membranes show reasonably stability during 60-htests as well as multiple washes.