The printing and dyeing wastewater contains many poisonous and harmful substances

such as organic dyes and heavy metals

which has caused serious harm to the ecological environment and human health. Herein

a temperature responsive ultrafiltration membrane was fabricated with PNIPAM@PS spherical polymer brushes. It was prepared and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR)

scanning electron microscope (SEM)

dynamic light scattering (DLS) and the water contact angle experiments. Different nanoparticles

such as methyl blue (MB)

rhodamine B (RhB)

and the CdSe heavy metal nanoparticles

were filtrated by PNIPAM@PS ultrafiltration membrane. The filtration performance was characterized by ultraviolet spectrophotometer (UV-Vis) and fluorescence spectrophotometer (PL). The rejection rate of this ultrafiltration membrane could be adjusted effectively by the length of PNIPAM chain

the size of PS core and operating pressure and temperature. If the temperature is higher than the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of PNIPAM

the PNIPAM chains could shrink which induce the larger pore size of PNIPAM@PS ultrafiltration membrane

and vice versa. The pore size adjustability of PNIPAM@PS ultrafiltration membrane has broad application prospects in wastewater treatment.