Ultrathin graphene oxide membrane for pilot scale dyehouse effluent treatment

Abstract

In the past decade, thanks to their ultrafast water transport and excellent molecule sieving properties, researches on graphene oxide (GO) based membranes have developed rapidly. However, the researches were mainly conducted in laboratory scale, and so far, there is no real on-site wastewater treatment experiments using GO-based membranes in pilot-scale reported. Herein, we report an on-site pilot trial study using the ultrathin GO membrane to treat a dyehouse effluent. The performance of the GO membrane was studied to provide insight for the large-scale applications. A long-term pilot trial of 45 days was conducted to investigate the long-term stability of the GO membrane. The rejection of mixed salts in the dyehouse effluent can be maintained at about 77.0%. And most typical organic pollutants in the effluent can be effectively removed. The quality of the produced water fully meets the requirements of the Chinese Industry Standard FZ/T 01107-2011. The results showed that the GO membrane has excellent purification efficiency for the real dyehouse effluent and excellent stability during the long-term trial run. The pilot scale study suggests that the GO membrane is highly feasible to treat the dyehouse effluent in a large industrial scale.