Preparation of Fibrous Filter Medium with Adsorption/Antibacterial Property by Photoinduced Graft Polymerization of Vim and Subsequent Quaternization(I) : Synthesis Condition and Functionality Evaluation
In recent years, the demand for advanced treatments in the water-treatment industry has increased, and physicochemicalseparation technologies have come into wide use. However, biofouling is a major problem for the separation processes in water and wastewater treatment. One anti-biofouling strategy is to construct antibacterial surfaces. In this work, polypropylene (PP) fiber was endowed with antibacterial/adsorption property by photoinduced graft polymerization of 1- vinyl imidazole (Vim) followed by quaternization with alkyl iodides. A concentration of Vim equal to 5 vol.% in 10-20 vol.% methanol, a photoirradiation time of 5 h and a reaction temperature of 80oC proved to be optimal for the grafting of Vim onto PP. The modified PP fibers were characterized by means of FT-IR, SEM, antibacterial and adsorption tests. We found that the quaternized PP-g-Vim fiber with methyl iodide exhibited high adsorption capacity for NO3-N and excellent antibacterial activities against both E. coli and S. aureus.