Antimicrobial property of polyethersulfone (PES) membrane by plasma copolymerization of TEOS and oxazoline for organic dyes filtration

Plasma-based surface modification has been regarded as a green method to avoid the usage of toxic solvents in order to introduce various functional groups on the filtration membrane. In this paper, we employ plasma polymerization on the polyethersulfone (PES) ultrafiltration membrane by using simultaneously Tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) and Oxazoline precursor exhibiting superhydrophilic and antibacterial properties to be used for organic dyes filtration. The addition of nanoscale coatings produced by the proposed plasma copolymerization of TEOS and Oxazoline could enhance the overall performance of the membrane in terms of pure water flux and antimicrobial properties compared to untreated sample. We evaluate its chemical composition by using Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR/ATR) and XPS spectroscopy to ensure the presence of Oxazoline ring and Silicate functional group. Thus, our proposed plasma-modified membrane could be promising to solve specific issues regarding antibiofouling and improve simultaneously its overall performance.