Synthesis and characterization of polysulfone–TiO2 decorated MWCNT composite membranes by sonochemical method

Abstract

This paper presents a new and facile synthesis method for the preparation of composite polymeric membranes based on polysulfone and carbon nanotubes decorated with titanium dioxide. In addition, we also investigate the synthesis of TiO2 decorated carbon nanotubes by sonochemical method. For this synthesis, along with the dispersion of the carbon nanotubes in the polymer solution, the nanotubes are also decorated with titanium dioxide which was added to the solution. Infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectrophotometry, thermal analysis, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy investigations carried out on the interest precursors (carbon nanotubes only and titanium dioxide) reveal the efficiency of the method. Moreover, these results show that the synthesis of novel composite membranes with well-defined structure has a strong potential in thin-film technologies or manufacturing of miniaturized devices. Synthesized membranes were used for photocatalytic degradation of ampicillin and erythromycin.