Investigation of the water treatment performance of cyclodextrin functionalized-graphene oxide incorporated new generation nanoporous polymeric composite membranes

Abstract

It is of great importance to meet the need for clean and usable water in the world, which is one of the main priority issues of the European Foresight Platform action plan, and to improve and develop existing technologies in this regard. Membrane technology is one of the most used technologies in water treatment, which can be easily and economically modernized. In this study, we aimed to eliminate some disadvantages that affect the performance and cost of membranes, such as physical/chemical stability and contamination of the surface, by incorporating cyclodextrin derivatives (x-CDs, x: α,β,γ) functionalized reduced graphene oxide (rGO). Membrane performance studies such as contamination tests using water permeability, bovine serum albumin (BSA), flux, and arsenic (As) removal in the table-top pilot system were examined and compared for each composite membrane prepared at different rates. The results showed that the salt rejection values were ranked as Na2SO4 > NaCl> MgSO4 > MgCl2 according to the salt type and it increased depending on the amount of substance. Besides, the arsenate removal studies were performed with the prepared membranes and it was observed that a maximum of 87.6% of the As was removed from the groundwater sample obtained from the Emet (Kütahya/Turkey) district.