Abstract
This paper reports the application of silica derived from natural biomasses of rice husk and bagasse ashes as membrane modifying agents. The modification was conducted on poly(ether sulfone) (PES) membrane by blending the silica into the dope solution. The modification was aimed to improve the structure and hydraulic performance of the resulting PES membrane. The effects of silica addition to the membrane system were evaluated through the analysis of change in chemical structure using ATR-FTIR, surface morphological change using AFM, and surface hydrophilicity using water contact angle measurement. SEM and AFM images show the silica loading significantly affects the membranes morphologies. Silica loading also promotes hydrophilic property as shown by the decrease in water contact angles from 82° to 52–60° due to the presence of polar groups in some residual silica in the membrane matrix. Silica blending also leads to the formation of membranes with higher permeability of up to three folds but lower humic acid rejection (78–62%). The findings indicate the role of silica to enhance the membrane pore size. The ability of membrane to reject humic acid (of 0.8 nm minimum diameter) indicating that the resulting membranes were in between tight ultrafiltration and nanofiltration type. Nonetheless, applying too-high silica concentration decreased the humic acid rejection most likely due to over enlargement of the membrane pore size.
Highlights
Membrane technology has been widely applied in water and wastewater treatment processes.The membrane process is widely used for removal of particles, turbidity, organic substances, and Membranes 2020, 10, 17; doi:10.3390/membranes10010017 www.mdpi.com/journal/membranesMembranes 2020, 10, 17 microorganisms in water [1,2,3] as it offers many advantages including low energy consumption, easy operation, and produces high quality of water [4,5]
This study aims to investigate the effects of the blending of silica rice husk and sugarcane bagasse biomass, and its concentration on the characteristics, and the performance of the resulting poly(ether sulfone) (PES) membrane by using pristine PES membrane as reference
PES as the main polymer of membrane material was supplied from BASF Co. (Ludwigshafen, Germany)
Summary
Membrane technology has been widely applied in water and wastewater treatment processes.The membrane process is widely used for removal of particles, turbidity, organic substances, and Membranes 2020, 10, 17; doi:10.3390/membranes10010017 www.mdpi.com/journal/membranesMembranes 2020, 10, 17 microorganisms in water [1,2,3] as it offers many advantages including low energy consumption, easy operation, and produces high quality of water [4,5]. Membrane technology has been widely applied in water and wastewater treatment processes. The membrane process is widely used for removal of particles, turbidity, organic substances, and Membranes 2020, 10, 17; doi:10.3390/membranes10010017 www.mdpi.com/journal/membranes. Polyethersulfone (PES) is one of the commonly used polymers in the fabrication of nanofiltration (NF), ultrafiltration (UF), and microfiltration (MF). This polymer has a high glass transition temperature (Tg ), excellent mechanical strength, outstanding stability against chemicals, and high resistance to oxidation processes [5,6]. PES is a hydrophobic with a low antifouling potential [7]. When PES membrane is applied to the filtration process, solute that cannot pass through the membrane can be adsorbed onto the surface of the hydrophobic polymer matrix and lowers membrane permeability and decreases membrane performance [8]
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