A synergistic polyelectrolytes-Zr-MOF hydrated construction graphene oxide nanofiltration with enhanced dye wastewater remediation

Abstract

In recent years, developing an efficient nanofiltration membrane had been a thorny challenge for dye/salt wastewater purification. In this study, a novel graphene oxide-based nanofiltration membrane (GO/UiO@S-GO-8) was constructed by intercalating the synergistic polyelectrolytes-Zr-MOF hydrated construction (UiO@S-GO) into GO nanosheets. Here, combining the hydrophilic high-density anionic sulfonic groups (SO3-) with cationic amino groups (-NH2), GO-based nanofiltration membrane demonstrated outstanding separation ability, anti-pollution performance and structure stability. Compared to pure GO membrane, benefiting by effective expansion of graphene layer spacing from intercalation effect of UiO@S-GO, the water permeance of GO/UiO@S-GO-8 membrane increased to 8 times (about 66.3 ± 1.5 L m−2 h−1 bar−1). Importantly, the permeances of various dyes wastewater also reached up to 65.1 ± 1.8 L m−2 h−1 bar−1 at the high removal rate (exceeding 99.4%). Furthermore, strong hydratability of polyelectrolytes and hard porous crystal constructed the robust anti-fouling micro/nano rough structures onto the membrane surface, which made flux recovery rate (FRR) of GO/UiO@S-GO-8 enhanced to 96.7 ± 1.3%. Remarkably, the salt-resistant behavior of the polyelectrolytes and porous MOF could maintain the stability of the membrane filtration channels, the GO/UiO@S-GO-8 membrane could realize efficient removal rate of dyes (over 98%) faced the complex dye wastewater with different salt concentrations. Meanwhile, the GO/UiO@S-GO-8 membrane also could maintain the high permeance (46.7 ± 1.5 L m−2 h−1 bar−1) as well as excellent removal rate (97.2 ± 1.4%) after 10 cycle experiments. Hence, the GO/UiO@S-GO-8 nanofiltration membrane with Polyelectrolytes-Zr-MOF hydrated construction possessed a broad application inspiration in the purification of high-salt/dye wastewater.