| Abstract: | The effects of post‐treatment (including thermal treatment and base treatment) on the structure and performance of acrylonitrile–maleic anhydride (AN‐MA) copolymer membrane were investigated. The water flux decreased gradually (except the deviations when the temperature of thermal treatment was 50 °C or the time of thermal treatment was 50 min but rejection of bovine serum albumin increased slowly with increasing temperature or prolonging the time of thermal treatment. “The swelling effect of water in network” was proposed to explain the deviations. AN‐MA copolymer membrane is not resistant to a base. However, the performance of the membrane can be adjusted by treatment with a dilute base solution. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
