Incorporation of graphene oxide nanosheets into polyethersulfone membranes to improve their separation performance and antifouling characteristics for Congo Red removal.

Abstract

Due to worldwide shortage of water sources and on the other hand, produced a huge amounts of contaminated industrial wastewater, there is an urgent need to provide proper treatment processes such as fast-growing membrane ones. In this study, some nanocomposite nanofilter membranes, as a promising solution for this goal, were fabricated by incorporation of graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets into polyethersulfone (PES) membrane matrix and poly-vinylpyrrolidone (PVP) via the method of non-solvent induced phase inversion separation (NIPS) to dedicated them higher separation performance as well as a higher antifouling tendency. The produced GO nanosheets and the prepared membranes' structure were evaluated by FESEM, XRD, and AFM analysis. Then, the separation performance and antifouling characteristics of the prepared pristine and nanocomposite membranes were evaluated at 3 bar, 27 °C, and Congo Red (CR) dye concentrations of 50, 100, and 200 ppm. The observations revealed that the incorporation of GO nanosheets into the polymer matrix of PES-PVP increases the permeation flux, rejection of CR, and flux recovery ratio (FRR) to the maximum values of 276.4 L/m2 .h, 99.5 %, and 92.4 %, respectively, at 0.4 wt. % loading of GO nanosheets as an optimum filler loading.