Facile fabrication of a positively charged nanofiltration membrane for heavy metal and dye removal

Abstract

• A simple fabrication procedure is used to fabricate a positively charged membrane. • The cross-linking reaction is performed in a mild condition at ambient temperature. • The membrane has a high water permeance and a high rejection for heavy metal salts. Positively charged membranes are essential for the removal of heavy metals from wastewater by nanofiltration (NF). A simple fabrication procedure for synthesizing a positively charged membrane with high permeance and high selectivity is needed to make this realistic. This work prepared a positively charged P84 NF membrane by chemical cross-linking of the asymmetric plain P84 membrane using hyperbranched polyethyleneimine (PEI). Instead of using organic solvent and thermal annealing, the cross-linking reaction occurred in mild conditions with a cross-linker concentration of 15 g L -1 and a cross-linking time of 20 h at ambient temperature in water. The modified membrane had increased surface hydrophilicity, surface roughness, and a positively charged surface. The resulting membrane had an excellent water flux of 43.2 L m -2 h −1 at 4 bar. The cross-linked P84 NF membrane showed high rejections of divalent heavy metals PbCl 2 , Ni(NO 3 ) 2 , ZnCl 2 , Cu(NO 3 ) 2 with rejections of 99.0%, 96.7%, 96.2%, 99.8%, respectively, which outperforms the commercial NF270 membrane tested in the same conditions. Due to the high cross-linking of the active surface layer, the membrane was found to reject positively charged organic dyes almost completely: Victory blue B (VBB, 506.08 g mo1 -1 ), methylene blue (MB, 319.85 g mo1 -1 ), and negatively charged Congo red (CR, 696.66 g mo1 -1 ). The convenient fabrication process could accelerate the progress of the positively charged NF membranes in potential applications of removing heavy metals and positively charged dyes from effluents in industries.