Hydrogel composite membranes for biomineralization

Organism induce the precipitation of a large variety of minerals with extremely sophisticated shape and highly organized microstructures. Understanding how organisms are capable of forming minerals into complex architecture has been a fundamental question of biomineralization for decades. As biomineralization generally takes place in a gel like microenvironment, hydrogel materials due to the porous and hydrated network can be used in biomimetic and simplify the precipitation of minerals in nature [3]. Despite that, because of inherent weak structure of hydrogel, is required to attach on a suited support with ease of handling. Combination of functional hydrogel materials and porous membranes which leads to composites with favorable properties and functionalities has been increasingly prevalent in the field of separation and membrane processes. Among different techniques for incorporation of hydrogel materials into porous membranes, photo initiated graft polymerization has a much interest due to the low cost of operation, mild reaction conditions and potential for reducing or even avoiding negative effects onto the bulk polymer. In this work, preparation of hydrogel composite membranes based on polypropylene (PP) and polyethersulfone (PES) membranes via UV-initiated graft polymerization has been investigated. Acrylic acid (AA) and 2-Hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) as functional monomers, Ethylene glycol dimethacrylate and Poly ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as cross linking agents and 2-Hydroxy-2-methylpropiophenone as a photo initiator have been used. The effect of monomer concentration, monomer mixture composition and as well UV irradiation time on hydrogel membranes preparation has been studied. The resulting membranes have been characterized by electron scanning microscopic (surface morphology) and surface chemistry analysis. Furthermore virgin and hydrogel composite membranes were used in calcium carbonate precipitation experiments and their performance was evaluated