Development of Antifouling Thin-Film Composite/Nanocomposite Membranes for Removal of Phosphate and Malachite Green Dye

Moucham Borpatra Gohain; Sachin Karki; Diksha Yadav; Archana Yadav; Neha R Thakare; Swapnali Hazarika; Hyung Keun Lee; Pravin G Ingole

doi:10.3390/membranes12080768

Development of Antifouling Thin-Film Composite/Nanocomposite Membranes for Removal of Phosphate and Malachite Green Dye

Membranes (Basel). 2022 Aug 7;12(8):768. doi: 10.3390/membranes12080768.

Authors

Moucham Borpatra Gohain^{1

2}, Sachin Karki^{1

2}, Diksha Yadav^{1

2}, Archana Yadav³, Neha R Thakare^{1

2}, Swapnali Hazarika^{1

2}, Hyung Keun Lee⁴, Pravin G Ingole^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Chemical Engineering Group, Engineering Sciences and Technology Division, CSIR-North East Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat 785006, Assam, India.
² Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad 201002, Uttar Pradesh, India.
³ Biological Sciences and Technology Division, CSIR-North East Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat 785006, Assam, India.
⁴ Technology Research Institute, QuantumCat Co., Ltd., Daejeon 34028, Korea.

Abstract

Nowadays polymer-based thin film nanocomposite (TFN) membrane technologies are showing key interest to improve the separation properties. TFN membranes are well known in diverse fields but developing highly improved TFN membranes for the removal of low concentration solutions is the main challenge for the researchers. Application of functional nanomaterials, incorporated in TFN membranes provides better performance as permeance and selectivity. The polymer membrane-based separation process plays an important role in the chemical industry for the isolation of products and recovery of different important types of reactants. Due to the reduction in investment, less operating costs and safety issues membrane methods are mainly used for the separation process. Membranes do good separation of dyes and ions, yet their separation efficiency is challenged when the impurity is in low concentration. Herewith, we have developed, UiO-66-NH₂ incorporated TFN membranes through interfacial polymerization between piperazine (PIP) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) for separating malachite green dye and phosphate from water in their low concentration. A comparative study between thin-film composite (TFC) and TFN has been carried out to comprehend the benefit of loading nanoparticles. To provide mechanical strength to the polyamide layer ultra-porous polysulfone support was made through phase inversion. As a result, outstanding separation values of malachite green (MG) 91.90 ± 3% rejection with 13.32 ± 0.6 Lm^-2h^-1 flux and phosphate 78.36 ± 3% rejection with 22.22 ± 1.1 Lm^-2h^-1 flux by TFN membrane were obtained. The antifouling tendency of the membranes was examined by using bovine serum albumin (BSA)-mixed feed and deionized water, the study showed a good ~84% antifouling tendency of TFN membrane with a small ~14% irreversible fouling. Membrane's antibacterial test against E. coli. and S. aureus. also revealed that the TFN membrane possesses antibacterial activity as well. We believe that the present work is an approach to obtaining good results from the membranes under tricky conditions.

Keywords: UiO-66-NH2 nanoparticles; antibacterial test; antifouling study; interfacial polymerization; malachite green; phosphate removal; polysulfone.

Grants and funding

We are grateful for the support from CSIR, New Delhi India and the DST, New Delhi, India through the grant under the in-house project OLP-2064 and DST/NM/NT/2018/143, respectively. DY and SK are thankful to DST, New Delhi, India for granting DST/INSPIRE fellowship award No. IF-190678 and IF-190333, respectively. NRT is glad to DST, India for funding under the DST/WOS-B/HN-27/2021 project.