Grafting of Porous Conductive Fiber Mats with an Antifouling Polymer Brush by Means of Filtration-Based Surface Initiated ATRP.

This work addresses the challenge of surface modification of porous, electrospun fiber mats containing an insoluble conducting polymer coating. Herein, a novel methodology of grafting a polymer brush onto conducting polymer fiber mats is developed that employs filtering of the polymerization solution through the fiber mat. An electrospun sulfonated polystyrene-poly(ethylene-ran-butylene)-polystyrene (sSEBS) fiber mat is first coated with a layer of conducting copolymer bearing an Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization (ATRP) initiating functionality (PEDOT-Br).

A Conductive Microfiltration Membrane for In Situ Fouling Detection: Proof-of-Concept Using Model Wine Solutions.

Cross-flow microfiltration, using a microporous membrane, is a well-established technique for wine clarification in oenology because of its cost-effectiveness and high-throughput. However, membrane fouling remains a significant issue for wine filtration in high-throughput systems. Herein, an approach for in situ real-time monitoring of fouling in filtration systems using a conductive filtration membrane and a model fluid for filtration is reported.