Abstract
Fresh water scarcity and pollution turn out to be a most serious issue throughout the world due to the rapid population growth. The application of nanomaterials (NMs) for the removal of pollutants from water has attracted significant attention. The nanofiltration membrane was fabricated through the evaporative casting (EC) method using multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) and chitosan (CHIT) as the surfactant to enable water purification. The developed EC membrane properties were characterized in mechanical, surface charging (zeta potential), surface morphology, and hydrophobicity properties. Results demonstrated that incorporation of MWCNT and the biopolymers (chitosan) resulted in suitable developments in mechanical properties of the membrane. For example, the membrane has shown values for tensile strength (28 ± 1 MPa), elongation (10.2 ± 1.2%), Young’s modulus (1.2 ± 0.1 GPa), and toughness of (1.9 ± 0.2 J/g). When more significant changes were investigated on the surface morphology of the EC membrane, it was observed that the pores on the surface morphology of the EC membrane decreased as the evaporative casting method was used. Moreover, the permeability of the membrane towards water, inorganic salts, and pH effect on salt rejections was studied using the NF/RO system. These established nanocomposite membranes signify the promising candidates for fresh water desalination and elimination of organic impurities.
Highlights
Fresh water scarcity and pollution turn out to be a most serious issue throughout the world due to the rapid population growth. e application of nanomaterials (NMs) for the removal of pollutants from water has attracted significant attention. e nanofiltration membrane was fabricated through the evaporative casting (EC) method using multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) and chitosan (CHIT) as the surfactant to enable water purification. e developed EC membrane properties were characterized in mechanical, surface charging, surface morphology, and hydrophobicity properties
When more significant changes were investigated on the surface morphology of the EC membrane, it was observed that the pores on the surface morphology of the EC membrane decreased as the evaporative casting method was used
Advances in NF membranes were developed for removal of monovalent ions from the surface water, underground water, brackish water, Journal of Chemistry and seawater [7, 9]. e NF was used as a first stage before the reverse osmosis (RO) process, and this leads to many benefits like higher monovalent ion rejection, accomplished higher RO design flux and recovery in water desalination plants, and increase in membrane lifetime[6]
Summary
Fresh water scarcity and pollution turn out to be a most serious issue throughout the world due to the rapid population growth. e application of nanomaterials (NMs) for the removal of pollutants from water has attracted significant attention. e nanofiltration membrane was fabricated through the evaporative casting (EC) method using multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) and chitosan (CHIT) as the surfactant to enable water purification. e developed EC membrane properties were characterized in mechanical, surface charging (zeta potential), surface morphology, and hydrophobicity properties. NF membranes still need to discover new materials in order to improve a high selectivity for monovalent ions In this context, carbon materials, for instance, activated carbons, graphene, and carbon nanotubes (CNTs), have been extensively castoff in water purification approaches [10]. A number of studies have shown that when ultrasonic energy is used to disperse large amount of CNTs, the resulting products are stabilized by noncovalent interactions with the polymer molecule (surfactant) [18, 19]. Both single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were very effectively dispersed to produce membranes using the nonionic surfactant octylphenol ethoxylate (Triton X-100). Chitosan (CHIT) is an abundant biopolymer which has been extensively castoff in numerous applications such as industrial and biomedical [25, 38], enzyme immobilization [26], and water treatment [27,28,29], as well as used as transporters for controlled drug delivery [30]. ese applications can be associated to the existence of quantities of the reactive amino and hydroxyl groups in the molecular chain of chitosan. erefore, CNTs/chitosan composites, which are developed by imbedding functional groups of the chitosan to CNTs, have been developed to adsorb the pollutions or toxic metals from the wastewaters [31,32,33, 39]
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