Effect of polydopamine on quaternized poly(ether ether ketone) for antibiofouling anion exchange membrane in microbial fuel cell

作者：Elangovan Mahendiravarman; Dharmalingam Sangeetha

来源：Polymers for Advanced Technologies, 2018, 29(1): 275-284.

DOI：10.1002/pat.4112

• anion exchange membrane
• antibiofouling
• antiadhesion
• hydrophilicity
• polydopamine
• surface roughness

Biofouling of anion exchange membranes is a matter of concern in microbial fuel cell. In the present study, we have attempted to improve the antibiofouling potential of anion exchange membrane by using quaternized poly(ether ether ketone) (QPEEK) with surface modification by polydopamine. It is well known that the antiadhesion test tops the list in measuring the antibiofouling potential of the membrane and hence studied. In addition, the effect of dopamine concentration on membrane hydrophilicity and surface roughness was also discussed. From the data, it was clear that power density in all microbial fuel cells showed the highest in the sixth batch and thereafter declined, although at a varying rate. As predicted, QPEEK-1.0 registered the least. The power density suffered a loss of 918 to 897mWm(-2) in the case of QPEEK-1.0, which is the minimum and the same for QPEEK; QPEEK-0.5 and AMI-7001 were 918 to 869mWm(-2), 917 to 885mWm(-2), and 578 to 537mWm(-2), respectively. A least value of protein content was obtained for QPEEK-1.0 (0.21 +/- 0.05gcm(-2)), and the same for QPEEK-0.5, QPEEK, and AMI 7001 were found to be 0.37 +/- 0.05gcm(-2), 0.78 +/- 0.09gcm(-2), and 1.4 +/- 0.11gcm(-2), respectively. In comparison, the antibiofouling potential of modified membranes was found to be higher than that of unmodified QPEEK and commercially available AMI 7001. The internal resistance values also confirmed that modification with PDA prevents bacteria adhesion leading to high antibiofouling potential.