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ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to develop the water flux and antifouling properties of a polyamide (PA) nanofiltration membrane. A nascent PA membrane was prepared with an interfacial polymerization technique and modified with 2,5-diaminobenzene sulfonic acid (2,5-DABSA) as a second modification. The effects of the 2,5-DABSA monomer concentration and the modification time on the membrane performance were investigated. The chemical structure, morphology, roughness, hydrophilicity, molecular weight cutoff, and antifouling properties of the membranes were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force spectroscopy, contact angle measurement, poly(ethylene glycol) tracers, and cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide filtration, respectively. The PA membrane with optimized performance was shown to have a greater than 44% higher water permeate flux with a change in the salt rejection in the order RNa2SO4 > RCaCl2 > RNaCl to RNa2SO4 > RNaCl > RCaCl2. The improvement of the hydrophilicity led to excellent antifouling properties in the new PA membranes and illustrated a promising and simple method for the fabrication of high-performance PA membranes. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 43583. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]