Abstract
Effluents from food, fermentation, and sugar industries contain a large quantity of glucose which has to be removed to limit the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the water discharged. This work proposes novel thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes incorporated with MgFe2O4 and ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles to address this concern. The nanoparticles synthesized by the sol–gel method was extensively characterized and then incorporated into the active polyamide layer of the thin-film composite polysulfone membranes. The change in membrane morphology, wettability, chemical structure, and mechanical strength with the incorporation of nanoparticles was studied in detail. Membranes with 0.005 wt.% MgFe2O4 nanoparticle exhibited highest glucose rejection (96.52 ± 2.35%) at 10 bar, 25 °C, and sufficiently high pure water flux (50.54 ± 1.92 L/m2h). This membrane also displayed 69.1 ± 5.12% salt rejection when challenged with 2000 ppm synthetic NaCl solution.
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Acknowledgments
We are indebted to Sophisticated Test and Instrumentation Centre (STIC), Kochi, for providing facility for SEM and TEM analysis and NIIST (CSIR), Trivandrum, for providing us with the XPS analysis.
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The authors acknowledge the Faculty Research Grant to Dr. Noel Jacob Kaleekkal by the National Institute of Technology Calicut, India.
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Nambikkattu, J., Kaleekkal, N.J. & Jacob, J.P. Metal ferrite incorporated polysulfone thin-film nanocomposite membranes for wastewater treatment. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 11915–11927 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-08024-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-08024-8