Antifouling improvement of polyethersulfone membrane incorporated with negatively charged zinc/iron oxide for at-pome colour removal

• Main Authors: Subramaniam, M. N., Goh, P. S., Tan, Y. H., Chiong, S. J., Lau, W. J., Ng, B. C., Ismail, A. F., Chuah, J. Y., Lai, S. O.
• Format: Article
• Published: Springer Verlag 2019
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/88478/; http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13369-019-03858-y

In this study, polyethersulfone (PES) hollow fibre membranes incorporated with different loadings of coupled zinc–iron oxide (ZIO) (0–2 wt%) nanoparticle were fabricated and used to remove the colour of aerobically treated palm oil mill effluent (AT-POME). The ZIO nanoparticles were synthesized via solution combustion method and characterized for their physicochemical properties. A specific amount of ZIO nanoparticles was then added into the PES dope solution followed by dry/wet-jet spinning technique to produce hollow fibre membrane of negatively charge surface properties. The membranes were characterized with respect to their cross-sectional morphology, hydrophilicity, tensile strength and surface charge. The separation performance of the membranes was then evaluated using pure water and AT-POME as feed solution. Results show that the membrane incorporated with 0.5 wt% ZIO was the best performing membrane, showing pure water flux and AT-POME flux of 2.46 and 2.0 L/m2 h, respectively, when tested at 1 bar. Furthermore, this membrane also showed reasonably good rejection against colour (76.2% reduction) and improved antifouling resistance.