Hydrophilic Modification of PVDF Membrane: a Review

The key challenges faced by using membranes in carrying out this water treatment process are increasing filtering efficiency and reducing the cost of water treatment. PVDF is one of the most widely used membrane materials, and its outstanding properties, such as high mechanical strength, thermal stability, chemical resistance and hydrophobicity, have received a great deal of attention from researchers and manufacturers in recent years. However, the strong hydrophobic properties of pure PVDF membranes, when handling aqueous solutions containing some natural organic and colloidal materials which are susceptible to deposition and absorption to the membrane surface, often lead to low water permeability and fast fouling. There are many methods of modification to change the properties of the antifouling membrane surface by physical modification (coating, mixing and use of composite membranes) and chemical modification (polymer functionalization, plasma processing and graft polymerization). Several methods of increasing the hydrophilicity value of membranes, such as surface coating, surface grafting and plasma polymerization, will be presented in this review paper