Incorporation of imprinted-zeolite to Polyethersulfone/Cellulose acetate membrane for creatinine removal in hemodialysis treatment

Polyethersulfon (PES) membrane has been widely used in the biomedical field especially in hemodialysis application. Many modifications of membranes have been applied into hemodialysis such as diffusion, adsorption, and mixed-matrix membrane. The main problem of those membranes is less selectivity to attract the uremic toxins. In this study, we report the modification of PES mixed with cellulose acetate (PES/CA) membrane as mixed-matrix membrane (MMM) using imprinted-zeolite (PES/CA/IZC) in order to increase the selectivity for targeted analyte. The hollow fibre membranes (HFM) were fabricated by dry-wet spinning technique. The successful zeolite A synthesised and was characterised by x-ray diffraction (XRD). The mixed-matrix membranes were characterised in terms of morphology using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), water contact angle (WCA), pure water flux (PWF), clearance of creatinine (CC), and BSA adsorption. In accordance with the results of characterisation, the synthesis of zeolite A, and imprinted-zeolite creatinine was successfully fabricated. The SEM results showed that the PES/CA/IZC membrane has uniform pores and fingerlike structure. The same result was obtained for PES/CA membrane, but not for PES/CA/ZA membrane. The WCA of the PES/CAPES/CA/ZAand PES/CA/IZC were 85.6384.98and 77.53 (o), respectively. While the PWF were 22.8427.57, and 40.52 (Lm-2 h-1), respectively. The addition of imprinted-zeolite into the membrane improved creatinine removal up to 74.99%. It showed that PES/CA/IZC has succeeded in increasing the selectivity of membranes to attract the creatinine as target analyte. Compared to the PES/CA, the creatinine clearance of membranes improved and increased up to 5.2%. For protein rejection, the PES/CA/IZC rejected 79.05% of bovine serum albumin (BSA). Based on these results, it can be concluded that PES/CA/IZC can be considered as hemodialysis membranes