Membrane Water Treatment Volume 8, Number 6, November 2017 , pages 613-623 DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/mwt.2017.8.6.613 |
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A novel approach to bind graphene oxide to polyamide for making high performance Reverse Osmosis membrane |
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Hiren D. Raval and Ravi Kiran Das
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Abstract | ||
We report the novel thin film composite RO membrane modified by graphene oxide. The thin film composite RO membrane was exposed to 2000 mg/l sodium hypochloride; thereafter it was subjected to different graphene oxide concentration ranging from 50 mg/l to 1000 mg/l in water. The resultant membrane was crosslinked with 5000 mg/l N-hydroxysuccinimide. The performance of different membranes were analysed by solute rejection and water-flux measurement. It was found that 100 mg/l graphene oxide exposure followed by 5000 mg/l N-hydroxysuccinimide treatment resulted in the membrane with the highest solute rejection of 97.78% and water-flux of 4.64 Liter per sqm per hour per bar g. The membranes were characterized by contact angle for hydrophilicity, scanning electron micrographs for surface morphology, energy dispersive X-Ray for chemical composition of the surface, Atomic force microscope for surface roughness, ATR-FTIR for chemical structure identification. It was found that the graphene oxide modified membrane increases the salt rejection performance after exposure to high-fouling water containing albumin. Highly hydrophilic, antifouling surface formation with the nanomaterial led to the improved membrane performance. Moreover, the protocol of incorporating nanomaterial by this post-treatment is simple and can be applied to any RO membrane after it is manufactured. | ||
Key Words | ||
thin film composite RO; graphene oxide; N-hydroxysuccinimide; antifouling; hydrophilic | ||
Address | ||
Hiren D. Raval and Ravi Kiran Das : CSIR-Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSIR-CSMCRI), Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), Gijubhai Badheka Marg, Bhavnagar- 364 002, Gujarat India | ||