Single-walled carbon nanotubes grafted with dextran as additive to improve separation performance of polymer membranes

Permeability and selectivity are two important parameters for evaluating membrane separation performance. In this work, the functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes (DexDTM- g -SCNT) is fabricated by non-covalent interaction using dextran-based macro-chain transfer agent, and used as an additive to blend with polyethersulfone to prepare ultrafiltration membranes via a non-solvent induced phase separation technique. DexDTM- g -SCNT modified membrane has excellent anti-fouling properties, good permeability, and excellent separation performance. Typically, the hydrophilicity of the modified membrane is significantly improved, when the content of additive is 3 wt%. The modified membrane shows high pure water flux of up to 223.3 L m −2 h −1 , and high rejection ratio for bovine serum albumin, and congo red of 98.5 and 98.8%, respectively. The strategy has great potential for practical applications in water purification and other separation fields.