Poly(ether sulfone) supported hybrid poly(vinyl alcohol)–maleic acid–silicone dioxide membranes for the pervaporation separation of ethanol–water mixtures

Microporous poly(ether sulfone) (PES) supported hybrid polymer–inorganic membranes were prepared by the crosslinking of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), maleic acid (MA), and SiO₂ via an aqueous sol–gel route and a solution‐casting method. The membrane performance was tested for the pervaporation separation of ethanol–water mixtures from 20 to 60 °C with a feed ethanol concentration of 96 wt %. The membrane characterization results reveal that different SiO₂ loadings affected the crystallinity and roughness of the membranes. The PVA–MA–SiO₂ membrane containing 10 wt % SiO₂ showed that SiO₂ nanoparticles were well dispersed within the polymer matrix; this resulted in significant enhancements in both the flux and selectivity. The membrane achieved a high water permeability of 1202 g·μm·m^?2 h^?1 kPa^?1 and a selectivity of 1027 for the separation of a 96 wt % ethanol‐containing aqueous solution. This enhanced membrane performance might have been due to the dense crosslinking membrane network, increased free volume, and uniform distribution of SiO₂ nanoparticles. Both the water and ethanol fluxes increased with the feed water concentration and temperature. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017 , 134 , 44839.     

Cellulose triacetate/LUDOX-SiO2 nanocomposite for synthesis of pervaporation desalination membranes

A series of cellulose triacetate/Ludox-silica nancomposite pervaporation membranes was successfully prepared via solution casting, aiming to improve the performance of cellulose triacetate membranes for desalination. The fabricated nanocomposite membranes were characterized to study the membrane morphology, chemical composition, mechanical properties, and surface hydrophilicity. Furthermore, the desalination performance was investigated as a function of silica (SiO₂) loading (ranging from 1 to 4 wt%) and feed concentration at 30 and 60 g/L of sodium chloride (NaCl). Pervaporation experiments showed that incorporating 4 wt% SiO₂ into a cellulose triacetate (CTA) membrane increased the water flux by a factor 2.5 compared with pristine CTA (from 2.2 to 6.1 kg m⁻² h⁻¹) for a 30 g/L NaCl feed solution at 70°C, while the salt rejection remained above 99%. The CTA/4 wt% SiO₂ membrane was found to have only 21% flux reduction when tested with a 60 g/L NaCl feed solution, without changes in membrane selectivity. This suggests that the developed CTA/Ludox-SiO₂ nanocomposite pervaporation membrane is suitable for desalination.     

Preparation and performance of the novel PVDF ultrafiltration membranes blending with PVA modified SiO2 hydrophilic nanoparticles

In this study, PVA‐SiO₂ was synthesized by modifying silica (SiO₂) with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), then a novel polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) ultrafiltration (UF) membrane was prepared by incorporating the prepared PVA‐SiO₂ into membrane matrix using the non‐solvent induced phase separation (NIPS) method. The effects of PVA‐SiO₂ particle on the properties of the PVDF membrane were systematically studied by scanning electron microscope (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT‐IR), surface pore size, porosity, and water contact angle. The results indicated that with the addition of PVA‐SiO₂ particles in the PVDF UF membranes, membrane mean pore size increased from 80.06 to 126.00 nm, porosity improved from 77.4% to 89.1%, and water contact angle decreased from 75.61° to 63.10°. Furthermore, ultrafiltration experiments were conducted in terms of pure water flux, bovine serum albumin (BSA) rejection, and anti‐fouling performance. It indicated that with the addition of PVA‐SiO₂ particles, pure water flux increased from 70 to 126 L/m² h, BSA rejection increased from 67% to 86%, flux recovery ratio increased from 60% to 96%, total fouling ratio decreased from 50% to 18.7%, and irreversible fouling ratio decreased from 40% to 4%. Membrane anti‐fouling property was improved, and it can be expected that this work may provide some references to the improvement of the anti‐fouling performance of the PVDF ultrafiltration membrane. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 59:E412–E421, 2019. © 2018 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Engineering design of outer‐selective tribore hollow fiber membranes for forward osmosis and oil‐water separation

Outer‐selective thin‐film composite (TFC) hollow fiber membranes offer advantages like less fiber blockage in the feed stream and high packing density for industrial applications. However, outer‐selective TFC hollow fiber membranes are rarely commercially available due to the lack of effective ways to remove residual reactants from fiber's outer surface during interfacial polymerization and form a defect‐free polyamide film. A new simplified method to fabricate outer‐selective TFC membranes on tribore hollow fiber substrates is reported. Mechanically robust tribore hollow fiber substrates containing three circular‐sector channels were first prepared by spinning a P84/ethylene glycol mixed dope solution with delayed demixing at the fiber lumen. The thin wall tribore hollow fibers have a large pure water permeability up to 300 L m^?2 h^?1 bar^?1. Outer‐selective TFC tribore hollow fiber membranes were then fabricated by interfacial polymerization with the aid of vacuum sucking to ensure the TFC layer well‐attached to the substrate. Under forward osmosis studies, the TFC tribore hollow fiber membrane exhibits a good water flux and a small flux difference between active‐to‐draw (i.e., the active layer facing the draw solution) and active‐to‐feed (i.e., the active layer facing the feed solution) modes due to the small internal concentration polarization. A hyperbranched polyglycerol was further grafted on top of the newly developed TFC tribore hollow fiber membranes for oily wastewater treatment. The membrane displays low fouling propensity and can fully recover its water flux after a simple 20‐min water wash at 0.5 bar from its lumen side, which makes the membrane preferentially suitable for oil‐water separation. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 61: 4491–4501, 2015     

Exploring the spinning and operations of multibore hollow fiber membranes for vacuum membrane distillation

Hollow fiber membranes with a multibore configuration have demonstrated their advantages with high mechanical strength, easy module fabrication, and excellent stability for membrane distillation (MD). In this work, the microstructure of multibore fibers was optimized for vacuum MD (VMD). A microstructure consisting of a tight liquid contact surface and a fully porous cross‐section is proposed and fabricated to maximize the wetting resistance and VMD desalination performance. The new membrane exhibited a high VMD flux of 71.8 L m^?2 h^?1 with a 78°C model seawater feed. Investigations were also carried to examine various effects of VMD operational conditions on desalination performance. The 7‐bore membrane showed higher flux and superior thermal efficiency under the VMD configuration than the direct contact MD configuration. Different from the traditional single‐bore hollow fiber, the VMD flux of multibore membrane at the lumen‐side feed configuration was higher than that of the shell‐side feed due to the additional evaporation surface of multibore geometry. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 60: 1078–1090, 2014     

Preparation of PFSA‐PVA/PSf hollow fiber membrane for IPA/H2O pervaporation process

Using Na⁺ form of perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) as coating materials, polysulfone (PSf) hollow fiber ultrafiltration membrane as a substrate membrane, PFSA‐PVA/PSf hollow fiber composite membrane was fabricated by dip‐coating method. The membranes were post‐treated by two methods of heat treatment and by both heat treatment and chemical crosslinking. Maleic anhydride (MAC) aqueous solution was used as chemical crosslinking agent using 0.5 wt % H₂SO₄ as a catalyst. PFSA‐PVA/PSf hollow fiber composite membranes were used for the pervaporation (PV) separation of isopropanol (IPA)/H₂O mixture. Based on the experimental results, PFSA‐PVA/PSf hollow fiber composite membrane is suitable for the PV dehydration of IPA/H₂O solution. With the increment of heat treatment temperature, the separation factor increased and the total permeation flux decreased. The addition of PVA in PFSA‐PVA coating solution was favorable for the improvement of the separation factor of the composite membranes post‐treated by heat treatment. Compared with the membranes by heat treatment, the separation factors of the composite membranes post‐treated by both heat treatment and chemical crosslinking were evidently improved and reached to be about 520 for 95/5 IPA/water. The membranes post‐treated by heat had some cracks which disappeared after chemical crosslinking for a proper time. Effects of feed temperature on PV performance had some differences for the membranes with different composition of coating layer. The composite membranes with the higher mass fraction of PVA in PFSA‐PVA coating solution were more sensitive to temperature. It was concluded that the proper preparation conditions for the composite membranes were as follows: firstly, heated at 160°C for 1 h, then chemical crosslinking at 40°C for 3 h in 4% MAC aqueous solution. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

Study on a new air-gap membrane distillation module for desalination

A new air-gap membrane distillation (AGMD) module for desalination with internal latent-heat-recovery which consisted of parallel hollow fiber membranes and heat exchange hollow fibers was successfully developed. The influences of feed flow rate, feed temperature and feed initial concentration on AGMD process were investigated. The vapor pressure polarization coefficient (η) was introduced to measure the reduction in the effective driving force for mass transfer with regard to the driving force imposed. Among all AGMD experiments, the maximum water vapor permeate flux (J_D) of 5.30 kg/m² h and the gained output ratio (GOR) of 5.70 were obtained. A theoretical model based on the mass and energy balances of the hot feed side was established to calculate the temperature and the local water vapor permeate flux distributions along the hollow fiber membrane, which showed that the temperature drop and local water vapor permeate flux drop were much larger at the upper part than those at the lower part of the membrane module in the hot feed side.     

Preparation and antifouling performance of thin inorganic ultrafiltration membrane via assisted sol-gel method with different composition of dual additives

A novel TiO₂ thin film was prepared on the ceramic hollow fiber by the sol-gel method using poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as additives. SEM images verified the formation of TiO₂ layer with various thickness using different composition of titania sols. The effect of the PVP and PVA contents on the TiO₂ sol properties, the separation and the antifouling performance of the ultrafiltration membranes were investigated thoroughly. When the contents of PVP and PVA were 1.0 wt% and 0.8 wt%, respectively, the resultant membrane showed a thickness of 0.55 μm with a pure water flux of 255 L m^?2 h^?1. In addition, the adherent foulant bovine serum albumin was applied to evaluate the antifouling performance. During the three fouling-recovery cycles, the flux recovery ratio and the flux decay ratio maintained about 99% and 30%. The BSA flux and rejection were still 169 L m^?2 h^?1 and 96.9% after the cycles, indicating a superior antifouling property.     

Advanced FO membranes from newly synthesized CAP polymer for wastewater reclamation through an integrated FO‐MD hybrid system

A new cellulose acetate propionate (CAP) polymer has been synthesized and used to prepare high‐performance forward osmosis (FO) membranes. With an almost equal degree of substitution of acetyl and propionyl groups, the CAP‐based dense membranes show more balanced physicochemical properties than conventional cellulose acetate (CA)‐based membranes for FO applications. The former have a lower equilibrium water content (6.6 wt. %), a lower salt diffusivity (1.6×10¹⁴ m² s^?1) and a much lower salt partition coefficient (0.013) compared with the latter. The as‐prepared and annealed CAP‐based hollow fibers have a rough surface with an average pore radius of 0.31 nm and a molecular weight cut off of 226 Da. At a transmembrane pressure of 1 bar, the dual‐layer CAP‐CA hollow fibers show a pure water permeability of 0.80 L m^?2 h^?1 bar^?1 (LMH/bar) and a rejection of 75.5% to NaCl. The CAP‐CA hollow fibers were first tested for their FO performance using 2.0 M NaCl draw solution and deionized water feed. An impressive water flux of 17.5 L m^?2 h^?1 (LMH) and a reverse salt flux of 2.5 g m^?2 h^?1 (gMH) were achieved with the draw solution running against the active CAP layer in the FO tests. The very low reverse salt flux is mainly resulting from the low salt diffusivity and salt partition coefficient of the CAP material. In a hybrid system combining FO and membrane distillation for wastewater reclamation, the newly developed hollow fibers show very encouraging results, that is, water production rate being 13–13.7 LMH, with a MgCl₂ draw solution of only 0.5 M and an operating temperature of 343 K due to the incorporation of bulky propionyl groups with balanced physiochemical properties. © 2012 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 59: 1245–1254, 2013     

Preparation of water‐swollen hydrogel membranes for gas separation

Water‐swollen hydrogel (WSH) membranes for gas separation were prepared by the dip‐coating of asymmetric porous polyetherimide (PEI) membrane supports with poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)–glutaraldehyde (GA), followed by the crosslinking of the active layer by a solution method. Crosslinked PVA/GA film of different blend compositions (PVA/GA = 1/0.04, 0.06, 0.08, 0.10, 0.12 mol %) were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and their water‐swelling ratio. The swelling behavior of PVA/GA films of different blend compositions was dependent on the crosslinking density and chemical functional groups created by the reaction between PVA and GA, such as the acetal group, ether linkage, and unreacted pendent aldehydes in PVA. The permeation performances of the membranes swollen by the water vapor contained in a feed gas were investigated. The behavior of gas permeation through a WSH membrane was parallel to the swelling behavior of the PVA/GA film in water. The permeation rate of carbon dioxide through the WSH membranes was 10⁵ (cm³ cm^?2 s^?1 cmHg) and a CO₂/N₂ separation factor was about 80 at room temperature. The effect of the additive (potassium bicarbonate, KHCO₃) and catalyst (sodium arsenite, NaASO₂) on the permeation of gases through these WSH membranes was also studied. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 80: 1785–1791, 2001     

Characteristics and potential applications of a novel forward osmosis hollow fiber membrane

There has been a resurgence of interest in forward osmosis (FO) as a potential means of desalination, dewatering and in pressure retarded osmosis, which Sidney Loeb was advocating over 3 decades ago. This paper describes the characteristics and potential applications of a newly developed FO hollow fiber membrane, which was fabricated by interfacial polymerization on the inner surface of a polyethersulfone (PES) hollow fiber. This FO membrane presents excellent intrinsic separation properties, with a water flux of 42.6 L/m² h using 0.5 M NaCl as the draw solution and DI water as the feed with the active layer facing the draw solution orientation at 23 °C. The corresponding ratio of salt flux to water flux was only 0.094 g/L, which is superior to all other FO membranes reported in the open literature. To evaluate different application scenarios, various NaCl solutions (500 ppm (8.6 mM), 1 wt.% (0.17 M) and 3.5 wt.% (0.59 M)) were used as the feed water to test the performance of the FO membrane. The membrane can achieve a water flux of 12.4 L/m² h with 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution as the feed and 2 M NaCl as the draw solution, suggesting it has good potential for seawater desalination.     

Polyvinyl alcohol/polysulfone (PVA/PSF) hollow fiber composite membranes for pervaporation separation of ethanol/water solution

Polysulfone (PSF) hollow fiber membranes were spun by phase‐inversion method from 29 wt % solids of 29 : 65 : 6 PSF/NMP/glycerol and 29 : 64 : 7 PSF/DMAc/glycol using 93.5 : 6.5 NMP/water and 94.5 : 5.5 DMAc/water as bore fluids, respectively, while the external coagulant was water. Polyvinyl alcohol/polysulfone (PVA/PSF) hollow fiber composite membranes were prepared after PSF hollow fiber membranes were coated using different PVA aqueous solutions, which were composed of PVA, fatty alcohol polyoxyethylene ether (AEO₉), maleic acid (MAC), and water. Two coating methods (dip coating and vacuum coating) and different heat treatments were discussed. The effects of hollow fiber membrane treatment methods, membrane structures, ethanol solution temperatures, and MAC/PVA ratios on the pervaporation performance of 95 wt % ethanol/water solution were studied. Using the vacuum‐coating method, the suitable MAC/PVA ratio was 0.3 for the preparation of PVA/PSF hollow fiber composite membrane with the sponge‐like membrane structure. Its pervaporation performance was as follows: separation factor (α) was 185 while permeation flux (J) was 30g/m²·h at 50°C. Based on the experimental results, it was found that separation factor (α) of PVA/PSF composite membrane with single finger‐void membrane structure was higher than that with the sponge‐like membrane structure. Therefore, single finger‐void membrane structure as the supported membrane was more suitable than sponge‐like membrane structure for the preparation of PVA/PSF hollow fiber composite membrane. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 98: 247–254, 2005     

Synthesis of graft copolymeric membranes of poly(vinyl alcohol) and polyacrylamide for the pervaporation separation of water/acetic acid mixtures

Graft copolymers of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) with polyacrylamide were prepared and membranes were fabricated at 48 and 93% grafting of acrylamide onto PVA. These membranes were used in the pervaporation separation of water/acetic acid mixtures at 25, 35, and 45°C. The permeation flux, separation selectivity, diffusion coefficient, and permeate concentration were determined. The highest separation selectivity of 23 for neat PVA at 25°C and the lowest value of 2.2 for 93% acrylamide‐grafted PVA membranes were observed. A permeation flux of 1.94 kg m^?2 h^?1 was found for the 93% grafted membrane at 90 mass % of water in the feed mixture. The diffusion coefficients in a water/acetic acid mixture had an effect on the membrane permselectivity. The Arrhenius equation was used to calculate the activation parameters for permeation as well as for the diffusion of water and of acetic acid. The activation energy values for the permeation flux varied from 97 to 28 kJ/mol. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 83: 244–258, 2002     

Application of Vibratory System to Improve the Critical Flux in Submerged Hollow Fiber MF Process

Submerged hollow fiber membrane system is widely used in water and wastewater treatment plants. One of the major problems of the microfiltration/ultrafiltration (MF/UF) process is membrane fouling. Few techniques have been developed to reduce membrane fouling and increase critical flux of the filtration process. In this study, membrane vibration was applied to improve the critical flux in a submerged hollow fiber MF system. A bench scale unit was especially built for this purpose and different vibrating speed was tested. The effect of the feed concentration and vibrating speed on the critical flux measurement were investigated. The critical flux was measured at different vibrating speeds varied from 0–500 oscillation per minute (opm) (5.83 Hz). The lowest critical flux was 15 L·m^?2·h^?1 when no membrane vibration was used and then increased gradually from 27 to 56 L·m^?2·h^?1 when the vibrating speed increased from 100 to 500 opm (8.35 Hz). A sharp drop in the critical flux was noticed when the concentration of feed suspension doubled from 5 g/L to 10 g/L. However, the increase in the critical flux was insignificant at higher feed concentration even when a high membrane vibrating speed was applied. This signifies that there is a limit for flux improvement in a vibratory system which is strongly dependent on the feed concentration.     

Effects of polyethylene glycol on the structure and filtration performance of thin-film PA-Psf composite forward osmosis membranes

In forward osmosis, internal concentration polarization is related to the properties (e.g., hydrophilicity, porosity, structural resistant) of membrane support layer. In this work, polyethylene glycol with a low molecular weight of 400 Da was introduced as a support layer additive during the fabrication of thin-film polyamide-polysulfone composite forward osmosis membranes. The forward osmosis performances including water flux and reverse salt flux of the membranes were tested in the mode of AL-FS where the membrane active layer faced toward feed solution. Results showed that the addition of polyethylene glycol would reduce internal concentration polarization and improve membrane performance in forward osmosis by means of enhancing membrane hydrophilicity and changing pore morphologies of membrane support layer. The membrane prepared with 6 wt.% polyethylene glycol was found to exhibit the highest water flux of 47.4 Lm^?2h^?1 with a reverse salt flux of 7.6 gm^?2h^?1 when using DI water and 2.0 M NaCl as the feed and the draw solution, respectively, indicating an optimal polyethylene glycol dosage of 6 wt.% in this work.     

Fabrication of low thermal conductivity yttrium silicate ceramic flat membrane for membrane distillation

This paper reports on the successful fabrication of γ-Y₂Si₂O₇ membranes with low thermal conductivity, which is an important membrane property for achieving high performance in membrane distillation process. Single-phase γ-Y₂Si₂O₇ powder was first synthesized by calcination of SiO₂ and Y₂O₃ powders, with 3 wt% LiYO₂ as a sintering aid. The membrane was produced by tape-casting of a suspension of this powder. After sintering at 1300 °C for 4 h, a flat membrane was obtained, which had a thickness of 0.5 mm, 49% porosity, 0.9 μm pore diameter, and low thermal conductivity of 0.497 W/m⋅K at 32 °C, and 0.528 W/m⋅K at 100 °C. The obtained membrane presented hydrophobic features (water contact angle was 132°) after surface modification, which resulted in formation of a strongly adhered robust hydrophobic SiNCO nanoparticle layer on its surface. The resultant hydrophobic membrane was tested in water desalination experiments using a sweeping gas membrane distillation (SGMD) device. High water flux of 10.07 L⋅ m⁻²⋅ h⁻¹ was achieved for a 20 wt% NaCl feeding solution and a temperature at the feed of 90 °C. Stable water flux and rejection rates were recorded in long-term experiments (>400 h).     

New chlorine‐resistant polyamide reverse osmosis membrane with hollow fiber configuration

New asymmetric hollow fiber reverse osmosis (RO) membrane was developed from a new chlorine‐resistant copolyamide [4T‐PIP(30)] with a piperazine moiety by a conventional phase‐separation method. The new 4T‐PIP(30) hollow fiber membrane has the same low‐pressure RO performance as cellulose triacetate hollow fiber membrane (FR = 205 L/m² day, Rj = 99.6%) and superior chlorine resistance as well as pH resistance to conventional aramid RO membranes. Structural analysis and viscoelastic study revealed that the new hollow fiber consisted of a top skin, dense layer, and microporous layer, and that it began to decrease its elasticity at 80°C in water, which is possibly related to its good and stable RO performance around room temperature. Several kinds of RO modules were made from the new hollow fiber membranes, for which RO performances were stable for 2 years in chlorinated feed water desalination (the free residual chlorine ranged from 0.l to 1.1 mg/L). © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 79: 517–527, 2001     

Preparation and characterization of CMCS/PVA blend membranes and its sorption and pervaporation performance (I)

Novel pervaporation (PV) membranes for ethanol dehydration were prepared by blend poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS), followed by the crosslinking reaction with glutaraldehyde; the structure and miscibility of the blend membranes were characterized by Fourier transform infrared, X‐ray diffraction, and differential scanning calorimetry; the results indicated that the blends were miscible. The effect of feed concentration, operation temperature, crosslinking agent content, etc. on sorption performance and PV performance of the blend membrane is investigated. The membrane of CMCS/PVA blend ratio of 8 : 2 exhibited a high separation factor of 2959 with a reasonably high water flux value of 0.14 kg m^?2h^?1 at the azeotropic feed composition (95 wt % of ethanol) at a temperature of 45°C. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009     

Development of stable and active PVA‐PSSA/SA‐PVA catalytic composite membrane for esterification enhancement

An active and stable catalytic composite membrane (CCM), poly(vinyl alcohol)–poly(styrene sulfonic acid)/sodium alginate–poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA‐PSSA/SA‐PVA), was prepared to enhance the esterification of ethanol and propionic acid. The morphologies and crystal structures of the CCMs were investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and X‐ray diffraction. The effects of catalytic layer thickness, mass ratio of PVA to PSSA, concentration of catalytic layer solution, ratio of reaction volume to membrane area, and molar ratio of propionic acid to ethanol were discussed. The pervaporation results showed that the flux of CCM increased from 118 to 320 g m^?2 h^?1 compared with the SA‐PVA membrane because of the close affinity and low resistance of PSSA to water. After crosslinking with 3‐aminopropylmethyldiethoxysilane, the CCMs had good catalytic activities. The acid conversion reached 92.8% at 75 °C in 12 h, and the stabilization of the CCM was greatly improved. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 46514.     

Positively charged hollow‐fiber composite nanofiltration membrane prepared by quaternization crosslinking

Poly(N,N‐dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate) (PDMAEMA) can be crosslinked by interfacial polymerization to develop a positively charged dense network structure. According to this mechanism, a positively charged hollow‐fiber composite nanofiltration (NF) membrane was prepared by quaternization to achieve a crosslinked PDMAEMA gel layer on the outer surface of polysulfone hollow‐fiber ultrafiltration (UF) membranes with a PDMAEMA aqueous solution as a coating solution and p‐xylylene dichloride as an agent. The preparation conditions, including the PDMAEMA concentration, content of additive in the coating solution, catalyzer, alkali, crosslinking temperature, and hollow‐fiber substrate membrane, were studied. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy were used to characterize the structure of the membranes. This membrane had a rejection to inorganic salts in aqueous solution. The rejection of MgSO₄ (2 g/L aqueous solution at 0.7 MPa and 25°C) was above 98%, and the flux was about 19.5 L m^?2 h^?1. Moreover, the composite NF membranes showed good stability in the water‐phase filtration process. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013