Ferroelectric ultrafiltration membrane with improved antifouling performance

[Display omitted] •A novel UF membrane was proposed based on spontaneous polarization of BaTiO3.•Ferroelectric polarization improved the hydrophilicity and surface potential.•The p-BTO/PVDF membrane possessed 220% permeability improvement than the control.•Ferroelectric membrane exhibited outstanding antifouling performance.•Ferroelectric membrane showed excellent antifouling stability. Although membrane technologies for water purification have been widely applied over decades, membrane fouling remains an inherent challenge in the membrane filtration process. Improving the hydrophilicity or surface charge of the membrane is an effective approach to mitigate membrane fouling. Here, a ferroelectric composite ultrafiltration membrane was fabricated by incorporating dopamine modified BaTiO3 nanoparticles into poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membranes and then charged by corona poling (p-BTO/PVDF). The water permeability of p-BTO/PVDF membrane (195.0 ± 10.5 L m-2 h−1 bar−1) was increased by 2.2 times compared to the pristine PVDF membrane. The enhanced hydrophilicity and surface potential based on ferroelectric charges promoted the formation of the hydration layer on the membrane surface and increased the electrostatic repulsion against the foulants, thus decreasing the filtration resistance and enhancing the antifouling performance of the membrane. The water recovery efficiency of the ferroelectric membrane reached 98.2 %. Furthermore, the ferroelectric membrane showed excellent antifouling stability. This work proposes an effective and environmentally friendly strategy for using ferroelectric polarization to regulate membrane anti-fouling.