TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of polysulfone-nanohybrid membranes using ZnO-GO composite for enhanced antifouling and antibacterial control
AU - Chung, Ying Tao
AU - Mahmoudi, Ebrahim
AU - Mohammad, Abdul Wahab
AU - Benamor, Abdelbaki
AU - Johnson, Daniel
AU - Hilal, Nidal
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was financially supported by the NPRP grant # [ 5-1425-2-607 ] from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors. In addition, the authors wish to acknowledge the Ministry of Education Malaysia for sponsoring the postgraduate study of Y.T. Chung through the MyBrain15 program. The CRIM (Centre for Research and Instrumentation Management, UKM) is also acknowledged for XRD, FESEM and TEM analyses.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2017/1/16
Y1 - 2017/1/16
N2 - Zinc oxide nanoparticles were well-known for the enhanced antifouling and antibacterial properties which could be beneficial for membrane processes in desalination. The functionalization of ZnO onto graphene oxide nanoplates was targeted for better distribution. Both ZnO and ZnO-GO NPs were synthesized using sol-gel method. The nanoparticles characteristics were checked with XRD, TEM, and FESEM. The nanohybrid membranes were fabricated via wet phase inversion technique and embedded with various percentage of ZnO (1, 2, 3 wt%) and ZnO-GO (0.1, 0.3, 0.6 wt%) nanoparticles. All the membranes with nanoparticles incorporation exhibited improved membrane properties in comparison with the pristine PSF membrane. The best membrane performance was shown in membrane with 2 wt% of ZnO and 0.6 wt% of ZnO-GO. These two membranes presented significantly improved performance such as enhanced hydrophilicity, high permeability and porosity, improved humic acid rejection rate as well as good antifouling and antibacterial control. To an extent, the excellent antimicrobial ability of these nanohybrid membranes appeared as appropriate candidate to contribute or overcome bio-fouling issues in applications such as brackish water or seawater desalination. Hence, ZnO and ZnO-GO NPs were superb nanomaterials in the fabrication of PSF-nanohybrid membranes. The use of GO nanoplates allowed reduction of ZnO composition by up to 5 times while showing similar performances.
AB - Zinc oxide nanoparticles were well-known for the enhanced antifouling and antibacterial properties which could be beneficial for membrane processes in desalination. The functionalization of ZnO onto graphene oxide nanoplates was targeted for better distribution. Both ZnO and ZnO-GO NPs were synthesized using sol-gel method. The nanoparticles characteristics were checked with XRD, TEM, and FESEM. The nanohybrid membranes were fabricated via wet phase inversion technique and embedded with various percentage of ZnO (1, 2, 3 wt%) and ZnO-GO (0.1, 0.3, 0.6 wt%) nanoparticles. All the membranes with nanoparticles incorporation exhibited improved membrane properties in comparison with the pristine PSF membrane. The best membrane performance was shown in membrane with 2 wt% of ZnO and 0.6 wt% of ZnO-GO. These two membranes presented significantly improved performance such as enhanced hydrophilicity, high permeability and porosity, improved humic acid rejection rate as well as good antifouling and antibacterial control. To an extent, the excellent antimicrobial ability of these nanohybrid membranes appeared as appropriate candidate to contribute or overcome bio-fouling issues in applications such as brackish water or seawater desalination. Hence, ZnO and ZnO-GO NPs were superb nanomaterials in the fabrication of PSF-nanohybrid membranes. The use of GO nanoplates allowed reduction of ZnO composition by up to 5 times while showing similar performances.
KW - Antibacterial
KW - Antifouling
KW - Polysulfone membrane
KW - Zinc oxide
KW - Zinc oxide-graphene oxide nanohybrid
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U2 - 10.1016/j.desal.2016.09.030
DO - 10.1016/j.desal.2016.09.030
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84991490618
SN - 0011-9164
VL - 402
SP - 123
EP - 132
JO - Desalination
JF - Desalination
ER -