Chemical and Biological Engineering Department, University of British Columbia, 2360, E Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Chemical and Biological Engineering Department, University of British Columbia, 2360, E Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Chemosphere. 2023 Jul;328:138593. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.138593. Epub 2023 Apr 4.
The utilization of membranes in the water industry has been growing rapidly; however, the technology still experiences problems with fouling. A potential solution is to immobilize photocatalyst particles on the surface of the membranes to encourage in situ degradation of the organic contaminants contributing to the fouling. In this study, we developed a photocatalytic membrane (PM) by coating a silicon carbide membrane with Zr/TiO sol. The performance of the PM in degrading different concentrations of humic acid was evaluated comparatively under UV irradiation of two wavelengths, 275 and 365 nm. The results indicated that (i) the PM achieved high levels of humic acid degradation, (ii) the photocatalytic activity of the PM reduced the formation of fouling and hence the loss of permeability, (iii) the formation of fouling was reversible; no trace of fouling was observed after cleaning, and (iv) the PM showed high durability during multiple rounds of operation.
膜技术在水工业中的应用发展迅速，但该技术仍存在膜污染问题。在膜表面固定光催化剂颗粒原位催化降解有机污染物是解决膜污染的一种潜在方法。本研究采用 Zr/TiO2溶胶涂覆碳化硅膜制备了光催化膜（PM），并在 275nm 和 365nm 两种紫外光照射下对比考察了 PM 对不同浓度腐殖酸的降解性能。结果表明：（i）PM 对腐殖酸具有较高的降解率；（ii）光催化活性降低了膜污染的形成，从而减少了渗透率的损失；（iii）膜污染是可逆的，清洗后无明显污染；（iv）PM 在多次运行过程中表现出较高的耐久性。
