Fabrication technique of composite chitosan/alginate membrane module for greywater treatment

Abstract

A novel chitosan/alginate composite membrane is proposed for the application of greywater treatment. In particular, the effect of stirring speed of mixing chitosan and alginate solution was investigated in this study. The study revealed that 150CSAL and 210CSAL membranes swell significantly compared to CS membrane due to the porous structure of composite membrane. The FTIR spectra revealed that the mixing speed has no influence in terms of molecular interaction between CS and AL due to fixed CS and AL concentrations used in this study. On the other hand, the complexation of AL with CS made outstanding improvement to the dense structure of CS where 180CSAL membrane has UP water flux as high as 90 L/m2h at 2 bar. All membranes have the capability to remove the pollutants present in GW and the COD removal was further improved up to 7% using CSAL membranes. In addition, increasing mixing speed improved the pathogen removal efficiency compared to CS membrane. The treated GW met the non-potable GW reuse standard for turbidity<5 NTU and TSS<20 mg/L. To summarize, the proposed fabrication technique on CSAL membrane showed improved characteristics to CS membrane and has significant performance on GW treatment.