Y Mansourpanah - Membrane Research Laboratory, Lorestan University, Khorramabad, Iran
Z Afsarian - Membrane Research Laboratory, Lorestan University, Khorramabad, Iran

In this work, a nano-porous membrane was prepred by depositing a thin layer of chitosan on an ultrafiltrationsupport. For this purpose a polyethersulfone support membrane was made, and then a thin layer of chitosan was fabricatedon the support. To improve the efficiency of the membranes sodium tripolyphosphate salt was used to improve the fluxand salt rejection. The different concentrations of STPP were chosen to modification process. The membranes werecharacterized by AFM and filtration set-up. Modified membranes showed higher rejection, denser and rougher surfacecompared to the unmodified membrane. The mean pore size of surface decreased from 126.5 nm (for unmodifiedmembrane) to 78.75 nm (modified membrane).

nanoporous membrane, Chitosan, Tripolyphosphate, Membrane modification