Surface modification of polypropylene microporous membrane by atmospheric-pressure plasma induced N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone graft polymerization

Membrane surfaces modified with poly(N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone) (PNVP) can be endowed with hydrophilicity, biocompatibility and functionality. In this work, atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge plasma graft polymerization of N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone (NVP) onto polypropylene (PP) microporous membrane surface was studied. The experimental results reveal that plasma treatment conditions, such as discharge power, treatment time and adsorbed NVP amount, have remarkable effects on the grafting degree of NVP. Structural and morphological changes on the membrane surfaces were characterized by attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR/ATR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscope (XPS) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). Water contact angles of the membrane surfaces were also measured by the sessile drop method. Water contact angles on the membrane surfaces decrease with the increase of NVP grafting degree, which indicates an enhanced hydrophilicity for the modified membranes. The effects of grafting degrees on pure water fluxes were also measured. It is shown that pure water fluxes increase with grafting degree firstly and then decrease adversely. Finally, filtration of bovine serum albumin (BSA) solution and platelets adhesion of the PNVP modified membranes show good protein resistance and potential biocompatibility due to the enhancement of surface hydrophilicity.