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Polycarbonate/polyvinyl alcohol thin film nanocomposite membrane incorporated with silver nanoparticles for water treatment

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Abstract

In this work, polycarbonate (PC) membrane was coated with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/silver (Ag) solution using dip-coating technique for the first time. The prepared thin film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes were characterized by FTIR spectroscopy, FESEM, AFM, and water contact angle. All membranes were applied for the removal of humic acid (HA) in a submerged membrane system under various transmembrane pressure (TMP) conditions. FESEM images confirmed the formation of PVA thin layer on the PC support membrane as well as the appropriate distribution of Ag nanoparticles. The experimental results reveal that the PC support membrane exhibits a water contact angle of 76.3°, while this value significantly decreased for the TFN membrane which contains 0.1 wt.% of Ag nanoparticles (55.1°). The obtained results from HA filtration revealed that at lower vacuum TMP (0.4 bar) conditions, PC/PVA-Ag (0.1) TFN membrane shows higher performance in terms of flux, flux recovery ratio (FRR) and HA rejection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Bonab, P. O. Box 5551395133, Bonab, Iran

    Milad Hermani

  2. Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Bonab, P. O. Box 5551395133, Bonab, Iran

    Habib Etemadi & Homayun Khezraqa

Authors
  1. Milad Hermani
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  2. Habib Etemadi
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  3. Homayun Khezraqa
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Correspondence to Habib Etemadi.

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Hermani, M., Etemadi, H. & Khezraqa, H. Polycarbonate/polyvinyl alcohol thin film nanocomposite membrane incorporated with silver nanoparticles for water treatment. Braz. J. Chem. Eng. 40, 863–872 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43153-022-00273-z

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