The Coating Effect of PANI/Silver on Performance of Polysulfone Membrane Toward Protein Separation

The effects of different coating time of PANI/Silver onto polysulfone (PSf) membrane surface were investigated based on the morphology, contact angle, surface roughness and rejection towards BSA, pepsin and trypsin. The membrane was prepared by employing the pressure deposition method toward phase inversed membrane. Thus, PANI particles were forced to adhere on membrane surface by pressure driven force. The duration of coated time was taken from 30 mins up to120 mins. However, due to smooth surface of PSf, PANI particle was able to bounce back from the PSf surface. Furthermore, the presence of PANI/Ag were also hard to distinguished on the membrane surface. Clear observation was noticed with the changed of the membrane surface from smooth in to rougher surface. EDS result using SEM data proved the presence of PANI and PANI/Ag on the surface membrane. The hydrophilicity of membrane was proved with decreasing of contact angle test from 75⁰ to 40⁰ for duration0 min until 120 min for membrane coated with PANI. Meanwhile membrane coated with PANI/Ag also show a reduction from 75⁰ to 50⁰. This result was in line with membrane surface roughness which is increased up to 79% after coating with PANI while 90% after coating with PANI/Ag after under effect of 120 min. Higher surface roughness had influenced membrane rejection performance toward BSA. For water rejection test, for PSf membrane show the rejection of 100%, 60.42% and 50% for BSA, pepsin and trypsin. After coating membrane for 30 min, 100%, 90.21% and 77.23% was obtain for coated with PANI and 100%, 92.30% and 80.30% after coating with PANI/Ag. For duration of 120 min, the result shows that coated membrane able to reject 100% BSA, for pepsin and trypsin it shows 96.15% and 87.98% while membrane coated with PANI/Ag, it shows 100% BSA and up to 98.41% and 90.60% pepsin and trypsin protein. In the end, study of membrane performance was improved with presence of PANI and silver on the protein separation process by using deposition method.