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Nowadays, inadequate available freshwater resources, population growth and industrialization of communities have led to the development of various methods for water and wastewater treatment. Different technologies have been used for water and wastewater treatment, among which ultrafiltration membrane with high separation and removal of contaminants is considered as a promising option for water and wastewater treatment. However, membrane fouling is one of the main problems in membrane operation resulted in reduced performance and additional costs. Membrane fouling can be caused by various factors, depending on the type of fouling, different methods can be used to prevent fouling. One way to decrease membrane fouling is to add hydrophilic nanoparticles to the membrane through diverse modification methods. In this review article, we have tried aside from introducing the methods of preparation of anti-fouling membranes, the effects of adding different nanoparticles on the performance and fouling reduction of ultrafiltration membranes through some approaches such as inversion phase, electrospinning, bonding through ultraviolet rays and polymerizations have been discussed.

Phase inversion is a common method for preparation of polymeric membranes. It is noticeable that most of the membranes prepared by this method have an asymmetrical structure. In this type of membranes, separation of particles occurs only by top dense layer in a high operating pressure. On the other hand, the separation process using symmetric membranes containing surface pores occurs on the top surface and in the depth of the membrane at lower operating pressure. In this research, preparation of polyethersulfone-based membranes was performed through the phase inversion method by dimethylacetamide as a solvent and water as the nonsolvent. Changing the coagulation conditions by applying one pause stage in an environment with the precise control of temperature and humidity, along with using polyvinylpyrrolidone as a hydrophilic additive, were attempted in order to controlthe porosity and structural changes of the membrane. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images, bubble point test, porosity, and mean pore radius measurements were used to study the structure of the prepared membranes. The performance of the membranes was evaluated by pure water permeation test and elimination of bacteria from cell culture medium. The results obtained illustrate that the implemented method is capable of preparation of membranes with symmetrical structure and pore diameter less than 0.4 μm featuring acceptable pure water flux and bacteria removalability. It was also observed that increase in the concentration of polyvinylpyrrolidone additiveleads to an increase in porosity, permeation and pore size of the membrane samples. On the other hand, the tensile strength and elongation-at-break of the membrane samples were reduced upon increasing in polyvinylpyrrolidone concentration.

Most of porous polymer materials are mainly prepared by solution phase inversion method. The de-mixing process can be initiated by diffusive solvent/non-solvent exchange of binary, ternary or multicomponent mixture. Recently, supercritical CO2 (ScCO2) is used as a non-solvent to prepare porous polymers. ScCO2 possesses excellent properties, such as environmental friendliness, liquid-like density and gas-like diffusivity in comparison with conventional liquid non-solvents. Porous polyurethane was prepared from polymer/N-dimethylformamide (DMF) solution using a supercritical fluid-phase inversion process in which carbon dioxide acted as the non-solvent. The effects of time delay, casting temperature and ratio of polyol/chain extender (POL/CE) on the membrane morphology and structure (size and distribution of cells and pores, thickness of dense layer and porosity) were studied. According to the results, a minimum time delay of 120 min was determined for formation of a suitable structure. The dense layer of 77.6 μm thickness was decreased to 43.1 μm by lowering casting temperature from 55°C to 35°C. The ratio of POL/CE influenced the thermodynamic and kinetic properties. A decrease in POL/CE ratio led to formation of smaller and uniform cells and increased porosity. On decreasing the ratio of POL/CE from 2 to 0.25, the mean diameter of the cells at 6.3 μm dropped to 3 μm.