Investigation of fouling of surface modified Polyvinyl chloride hollow fiber membrane bioreactor via Zinc oxide-nanoparticles under coagulant for municipal wastewater treatment

Abstract

In this study, hollow fiber PVC/ZnO-nanocomposite in an MBR was investigated for municipal wastewater treatment. The following parameter were evaluated: BOD, COD, TSS, NTU, TP, TKN. ZnO nanoparticles caused to decrease the contact angle from 78° to 67° for the neat PVC and 0.5 wt% ZNO-nanocomposite membrane, respectively. The majority of the neat membrane resistance was due to irreversible resistance. Because of the antibacterial properties of zinc oxide nanoparticles, with increasing nanoparticles loading, the resistance of irreversible part compared to the reversible resistance experienced a significant decrease. This confirm that the fabricated nanocomposite membranes did not show affinity toward adsorption of the sludge inside the pores hence substantially limited the membrane fouling. The FTIR results showed the reduction of proteins and polysaccharides onto the surface of the nanoparticle-incorporated membranes, approaching the clean PVC membrane. This was most likely due to the antibacterial properties of ZnO NPs. Nitrogen and phosphor removal for PVC0.5 membrane was 99% and 79% and TSS removal up to 100% was achieved. The findings of this study showed that modification of PVC polymer using ZnO nanoparticles with the presence of ferric chloride coagulant is a very effective technique for municipal wastewater treatment to meet the well-known standard levels.