Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene membranes are semiconductors, medical, and separation processes due to their high chemical resistance and mechanical robustness. However, their inherently low surface energy and chemical inertness impose substantial limitations on surface functionalization and water-flow performance. In this study, a strategy was developed to introduce an ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid chelating layer by integrating a hydrophilic interlayer formed through tannic acid-3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane coating with a photoacid-induced sol-gel reaction. This approach overcomes the constraints of conventional membranes and enables effective removal of trace metal ions. The optimized membrane (A10T50) exhibits a mean pore diameter of 81.4 nm and maintains a high water flux of 1881 L·m −2 ·h −1 while achieving approximately 95% Cu(II) removal, corresponding to an area-specific adsorption capacity of 1.52 × 10 −5 meq·cm −2 . Furthermore, the regenerated membranes consistently maintained more than 90% removal efficiency across three adsorption-desorption cycles, while preserving the average area-specific adsorption capacities of 5.30 × 10 −5 meq·cm −2 (Al (III)), 1.66 × 10 −5 meq·cm −2 (Ni(II)), 1.45 × 10 −5 meq·cm −2 (Zn(II)), and 1.54 × 10 −5 meq·cm −2 (Cu(II)). These findings demonstrate that photoacid-mediated silanization offers a controllable and potentially scalable route to fabricate metal-ion-chelating UHMWPE membranes for trace metal removal in ultrapure-water (UPW) polishing applications.
Kim et al. (Fri,) studied this question.