Polyvinylidene Difluoride (PVDF) Hollow Fiber Membrane Incorporated with Antibacterial and Anti-Fouling by Zinc Oxide for Water and Wastewater Treatment.

Roziana Kamaludin,Siti Hamimah Sheikh Abdul Kadir,Keng Yinn Wong,Mohd Hafiz Puteh,Sumarni Mansur,Mohd Hafiz Dzarfan Othman,Watsa Khongnakorn,Lubna Abdul Majid

doi:10.3390/membranes12020110

Roziana Kamaludin, Siti Hamimah Sheikh Abdul Kadir + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes12020110

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Abstract

The addition of antibacterial material to hollow fiber membranes improves the membrane anti-biofouling characteristics. Antibacterial membranes were fabricated in this study to improve membrane function while also extending membrane lifetime. Neat polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) and PVDF hollow fiber membrane with the incorporation of antibacterial agent zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles with various loading (2.5–7.5 wt.%) were fabricated by using dry/wet spinning method. The membrane structure, particle distribution, functional group, hydrophilicity, and pore size of each membrane were all assessed. The result shows that all ZnO/PVDF hollow fiber membranes have the asymmetric structure with even dispersion of ZnO nanoparticles throughout the membranes. The results showed that increased ZnO loadings considerably improved membrane hydrophilicity, and average pore size, in addition to good performance of pure water flux. Antibacterial testing shows that ZnO incorporated in the membrane matrix and membrane surfaces prevents bacteria that cause biofouling from adhering to the membrane. ZnO/PVDF membrane recorded excellent bovine serum albumin (BSA) rejection at 93.4% ± 0.4 with flux recovery rate at 70.9% ± 2.1. These results suggest that antibacterial ZnO/PVDF hollow fiber membranes are promising in relation to reducing biofouling for various water and wastewater treatment.

Highlights

The outcome of this study is to provide the potential of zinc oxide (ZnO)/polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) as antibacterial hollow fiber to reduce membrane biofouling, increasing the membrane lifetime for various water and wastewater treatment
The distinctive sandwich-like shape of all developed membranes can be seen in cross-sectional morphological images, which comprise of the finger-like structure developed at the inner and outer membrane layers, and the sponge-like structure developed in the middle membrane layer (Figure 1a–d)
The morphology of ZnO/PVDF yield more porous structure compared to the MNeat due 50.00 to the presence of ZnO nanoparticles

Summary

Introduction

Hollow fiber membranes have played a significant part in the development of the membrane field in various industrial sectors due to their advantages such as mechanically self-supporting and assembled in modules for various membrane applications [1]. The fact that they provide a wide membrane surface per module volume is the most important feature, in addition to more efficiency in filtration than flat sheet membranes, as hollow fiber membrane can be used in two ways: “inside-out” or “outside-in” [2]. Hollow fiber can be used in a variety of filtration processes, including microfiltration (MF) and reverse osmosis (RO). The main issues with hollow fiber filtration are irreversible fouling and fiber breaking

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