Suhalim Nur Syahirah, Kasim Norherdawati, Mahmoudi Ebrahim, Shamsudin Intan Juliana, Jamari Nor Laili-Azua, Mohamed Zuki Fathiah
Faculty of Defence Science and Technology, National Defence University of Malaysia, Kem Sungai Besi, Kuala Lumpur 57000, Malaysia.
Department of Chemistry & Biology, Centre for Defence Foundation Studies, National Defence University of Malaysia, Kem Sungai Besi, Kuala Lumpur 57000, Malaysia.
Membranes (Basel). 2023 Jun 15;13(6):602. doi: 10.3390/membranes13060602.
The utilization of membranes has been extensively employed in the treatment of water and wastewater. Membrane fouling, attributed to the hydrophobic nature of membranes, constitutes a noteworthy concern in the realm of membrane separation. The mitigation of fouling can be achieved through the modification of membrane characteristics, including but not limited to hydrophilicity, morphology, and selectivity. In this study, a nanohybrid polysulfone (PSf) membrane embedded with silver-graphene oxide (Ag-GO) was fabricated to overcome problems related to biofouling. The embedment of Ag-GO nanoparticles (NPs) is the aim towards producing membranes with antimicrobial properties. The fabricated membranes at different compositions of NPs (0 wt%, 0.3 wt%, 0.5 wt%, and 0.8 wt%) are denoted as M0, M1, M2, and M3, respectively. These PSf/Ag-GO membranes were characterized using FTIR, water contact angle (WCA) goniometer, FESEM, and salt rejection. The additions of GO significantly improved the hydrophilicity of PSf membranes. An additional OH peak at 3380.84 cm of the nanohybrid membrane from FTIR spectra may be related to hydroxyl (-OH) groups of GO. The WCA of the fabricated membranes decreased from 69.92° to 54.71°, which confirmed the improvement in its hydrophilicity. In comparison to the pure PSf membrane, the morphology of the finger-like structure of the fabricated nanohybrid membrane slightly bent with a larger bottom part. Among the fabricated membranes, M2 achieved the highest iron (Fe) removal, up to 93%. This finding proved that the addition of 0.5 wt% Ag-GO NPs enhanced the membrane water permeability together with its performance of ionic solute removal (Fe) from synthetic groundwater. In conclusion, embedding a small amount of Ag-GO NPs successfully improved the hydrophilicity of PSf membranes and was able to achieve high removal of Fe at 10-100 mg L towards purification of groundwater for safe drinking water.
膜的应用已广泛用于水和废水处理。由于膜的疏水性导致的膜污染是膜分离领域中一个值得关注的问题。可以通过改变膜的特性（包括但不限于亲水性、形态和选择性）来减轻污染。在本研究中，制备了一种嵌入银-氧化石墨烯（Ag-GO）的纳米复合聚砜（PSf）膜，以克服与生物污染相关的问题。嵌入Ag-GO纳米颗粒（NPs）的目的是制备具有抗菌性能的膜。不同NPs组成（0 wt%、0.3 wt%、0.5 wt%和0.8 wt%）的制备膜分别表示为M0、M1、M2和M3。使用傅里叶变换红外光谱（FTIR）、水接触角（WCA）测角仪、场发射扫描电子显微镜（FESEM）和脱盐率对这些PSf/Ag-GO膜进行了表征。添加氧化石墨烯（GO）显著提高了PSf膜的亲水性。FTIR光谱中纳米复合膜在3380.84 cm处的额外OH峰可能与GO的羟基（-OH）基团有关。制备膜的WCA从69.92°降至54.71°，这证实了其亲水性的提高。与纯PSf膜相比，制备的纳米复合膜的指状结构形态略有弯曲，底部更大。在制备的膜中，M2对铁（Fe）的去除率最高，可达93%。这一发现证明，添加0.5 wt%的Ag-GO NPs提高了膜的水渗透性及其从合成地下水中去除离子溶质（Fe）的性能。总之，嵌入少量的Ag-GO NPs成功提高了PSf膜的亲水性，并能够在10-100 mg/L的浓度下实现对铁的高效去除，从而净化地下水以获得安全的饮用水。
