the monomer chosen for this study methacrylic acid is of interest because poly methacrylic acid is a water soluble polymer that has been proposed as a surface modifier to reduce membrane fouling moreover this monomer would enable one to impart a negative surface charge to the membrane thereby reducing colloidal fouling associated with the majority of natural colloidal matter which is typically negatively charged accordingly ro membranes have been nanostructured by grafted poly methacrylic acid layers to explore the impact of the surface nanostructured membranes on mineral salt scaling propensity prime grade silicon lt 100 gt wafers used as substrates for surrogate polyamide poly ethyleneimine thin films were purchased from wafernet inc san jose calif reagent grade sulfuric acid and aqueous hydrogen peroxide 30 vol used for silicon wafer cleaning was purchased from fisher scientific pittsburgh pa poly ethyleneimine pei m w 750 000 g mol used to promote adhesion between the polyamide layer and silicon wafers and 1 3 phenylenediamine mpda u2267 99 and 1 3 5 benzenetricarboxylic chloride tmc 98 which are monomers used for polyamide interfacial polymerization were purchased from sigma aldrich st louis mo methacrylic acid monomer u2267 98 used for graft polymerization was used as received and was obtained from fluka ronkonkoma n y ultra pure deionized water used as the solvent for aqueous phase graft polymerization and membrane surface scaling studies was produced by filtering distilled water through a milli.