Fabrication of hydrophilic and antibacterial poly(vinylidene fluoride) based separation membranes by a novel strategy combining radiation grafting of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and electroless nickel plating.

This study proposed a novel strategy to improve performance of inherently hydrophobic poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membrane. The proposed strategy combined radiation grafting of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and electroless nickel plating. After a 5 min plating by using this modification strategy, the water contact angle of the modified membrane decreased from 75.5° to 47.1°, and water content ratio increased from 61.4% to 109.9%. The modified PVDF-g-PAA-Ag@Ni membrane presented 100% flux recovery and reduced fouling propensity when filtrating 0.1 g/L sodium alginate (SA) solution. Moreover, involvement of silver in this strategy provided evident antibacterial activity of the modified membranes. The ease and high efficiency of this strategy point towards the potential widespread applications of this strategy and the modified membranes.