Investigation of the treatment and antibacterial properties of pollutant-containing water using black phosphorus blended polyethersulfone membranes (BP@PES)

Abstract

The most important problem of membrane processes is clogging and therefore the reduction of their useful life. In order to eliminate such problems, the production of composite membranes is an option in membrane treatment systems. In this study, the usability of black phosphorus (BP) in membrane treatment systems, and its effect on antibacterial and treatment performance were studied. BP blended PES membranes (BP@PES) produced by loading BP into the polyethersulfone (PES) membranes were used for the treatment of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and Escherichia coli (E. coli). For this purpose, BP was added at three different amounts (0.5 %, 1.0 %, and 2.0 %) into PES membranes. Membranes with different BP amounts produced were named as 0.5%BP@PES, 1.0%BP@PES, and 2.0%BP@PES. After the production of these composite membranes, they were used in the dead-end filtration system and compared with the PES membrane without BP (bare PES). The removal effectiveness of bare PES was found to be 53.40 % in the BSA rejection results, and it was discovered to be 60.90 %, 97.15 %, and 100 % for 0.5%BP@PES, 1.0%BP@PES, and 2.0%BP@PES, respectively. The antioxidant activity of BP was 70.86% at 100 mg/L. Newly prepared BP caused single-strand DNA nuclease abilities at 50, 100, and 200 mg/L. BP showed the effective antimicrobial activity. The most antimicrobial activity was determined as a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value of 8 mg/L against E. hirae and 100 % E. coli viability inhibition activity was achieved at 50 and 100 mg/L after 90 min exposure. BP also inhibited the biofilm formation of P. aeruginosa at 87.19 % and S. aureus at 90.28 % at 50 mg/L. Thus, both the effect of BP on membrane performance and its antibacterial properties were investigated. Pure water fluxes, BSA and E.coli rejection performances, and antibacterial properties of all membranes used in the membrane filtration system were investigated in detail. It is recommended to further investigate BP-containing membranes with different production techniques.