Studies of supported phospholipid bilayers formed on nanofiltration membranes surface

Abstract Reverse osmosis (RO) is currently the most important desalination technology and it is experiencing significant growth. However, the developments of membrane permselectivity in the past decade have been relatively slow, and membrane fouling remains a severe problem. The excellent water transport properties of biological membranes with specialized transmembrane proteins aquaporins as water-selective channels exceed those commercial membranes for water desalination. Supported phospholipid bilayers (SPBs) can maintain the biological activity of molecules and inhibit other non-specific adsorption of biological molecules. In this study, the main work is mostly focused on conditions ensuring most efficient coverage of the supporting nanofiltration (NF) membranes with phospholipid bilayers. Four different NF membranes as supports are explored to form phospholipid bilayers. The presence of SPBs on the four different NF membranes surface is verified and quantified by atomic force microscope (AFM), attenua...