Polydopamine-assisted Modification Of Poly (Ether) Sulfone For Antibacterial And Antifouling Properties Improvement

Hemodialysis is the most adopted treatment for end-stage renal disease(ESRD), but there are still some problems remains to be solved. Hemodialysis patients were carrying heavy economic and health burden, partly come from the expensive antibiotics and anticoagulants constantly needed to lower the risk of bacterial infection and blood coagulation during hemodialysis treatment. Thus, the antibacterial and antifouling modification of hemodialysis membranes will be promising to reduce this burden and protect patients from infection and unnecessary coagulation response.Polydopamine(PDA) coating formed on ploy(ether)sulfone(PES) membrane surface was multi-functional, not only improved surface hydrophilicity, but also offered abundant functional moieties for further modification. Water contact angle showed the hydrophilicity changes of PDA modified PES membranes. Attenuated Total Reflectance-Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy(ATR-FTIR), Raman spectrum and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS) results indicated the existence of PDA and further modification. PES membrane surface and cross-section were observed by 3D microscope and scanning electron microscope; the micrographs showed that the PES porous formation was not obviously affected by PDA modification.In this paper, PDA was used as the modification assistance for the immobilization of copper ions and amino acids. Antibacterial and antifouling functional coatings were prepared on PES membranes and tested by bacterial and blood experiments. The results showed that copper immobilized coating eliminated over 90 % surface adhered E. coli and S. aureus, besides, copper ions released into solution was lower than 1 ppm and showed low blood toxicity. Amino acids immobilized coating showed antifouling property against non-specific serum proteins, bacteria and platelets. The amino acids ensured the modified surface to be non-toxic.In conclusion, PDA assisted antibacterial and antifouling modification for PES membranes was an simple, mild and effective method, which was hopefully be used on commercial hemodialysis membrane modification and rapid industry production.