Performance of poly(vinyl alcohol) thin-gel composite ultrafiltration membranes

Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) hydrogels were spin coated onto regenerated cellulose membranes to form thin-gel composite ultrafiltration membranes. The membranes were investigated in ultrafiltration experiments with bovine serum albumin (BSA) to assess their resistance to fouling. The effects of hydrogel thickness and the degree of crosslinking on pure water flux and ultrafiltration flux were studied. As expected, flux was found to decrease with increasing hydrogel thickness. The thicker hydrogel coatings proved highly effective at preventing irreversible protein fouling as indicated by nearly 100% pure water flux recovery. For a given thickness, increasing the degree of crosslinking had no measurable effect on flux or the extent of fouling owing to a limiting polymer volume fraction under hydrostatic pressure.