Preparation and characterization of polyacrylonitrile membranes modified with polyelectrolyte deposition for separating similar sized proteins

One of the challenges faced by ultrafiltration membranes is to separate proteins with a small difference in their molecular weights. Recently, some researchers tried to overcome this problem by using charged membranes. This study examined the use of layer by layer deposition of polyelectrolytes on the chemically-modified polyacyronitrile membrane to increase the selectivity of the ultrafiltration. The membranes were prepared by wet-phase inversion technique and polyethylenimine (PEI) and alginate (ALG) were chosen as cationic and anionic polyelectrolytes for the modification of the surfaces. Sieving coefficient data were obtained with myoglobin and lysozyme as model proteins. The influences of solution pH, ionic strengths of the protein and polyelectrolyte solution and the number of polyelectrolyte bilayers on both selectivity and throughput were investigated. The highest selectivity and throughput were achieved with the 1-bilayer PEI-ALG coated polyacrylonitrile (PAN) membrane. Increasing the number of coating bilayers or the ionic strength of the protein solution or adding salt into the polyelectrolyte coating solution decreased both the maximum selectivity and throughput of the modified membranes. ► Polyacyronitrile membranes were modified with polyelectrolyte deposition. ► Polyethylenimine and alginate were used as polyelectrolytes. ► The membranes were tested for the separation of myoglobin and lysozyme. ► The highest selectivity and throughput were achieved with the 1-bilayer coating.