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

Abstract

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.