Surface functionalization of a poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT) melt-blown filtration membrane by wet chemistry and photo-grafting.

The surface functionalization of PBT melt-blown membrane, making up a whole filter of blood components, was achieved via two methods. Hydroxyl chain-end activation by tosylation (method A), followed by coupling of F- and (3)H-tagged molecules (probes), led to 1% of surface derivatization (XPS) and 290 pmol/cm(2) of lysine fixation (LSC). Deposition of O-succinimidyl 4-(p-azido-phenyl)butanoate ("molecular clip") and 2 h irradiation at 254 nm led to the implanting of activated ester functions, randomly on the polymer surface (method B). Further coupling of F- and (3)H-probes by wet chemistry gave highly functionalized surface (4% by XPS and 1000 pmol/cm(2) by LSC). However, control experiments showed that about 80% of the surface derivatization resulted from the UV treatment alone. Thus, the effect of UV irradiation on PBT membrane was systematically studied and analyzed by XPS, contact angle measurements, GPC and surface reactivity assays. The optimized conditions of "molecular clip" photo-grafting (negligible polymer photo-oxidation/photo-degradation) led to the covalent fixation of 45 pmol/cm(2) of (3)H-probe. Throughout our study, the behaviour of PBT melt-blown membrane was compared to PBT film and PET track-etched membrane similarly treated. Lastly, the method B was applied to couple GRGDS peptide on the PBT membrane; this material showed improved properties of leukocyte depletion in buffy coat filtration experiments.