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Polymeric membranes have been widely employed for water purification applications. However, the trade-off issue between the selectivity and permeability has limited its use in various applications. Mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) were introduced to overcome this limitation and to enhance the properties and performance of polymeric membranes by incorporation of fillers such as silica and zeolites. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a new class of hybrid inorganic–organic materials that are introduced as novel fillers for incorporation in polymeric matrix to form composite membranes for different applications especially water desalination. A major advantage of MOFs over other inorganic fillers is the possibility of preparing different structures with different pore sizes and functionalities, which are designed especially for a targeted application. Different MMMs fabrication techniques have also been investigated to fabricate MMMs with pronounced properties for a specific application. Synthesis techniques include blending, layer-by-layer (LBL), gelatin-assisted seed growth and in situ growth that proved to give the most homogenous dispersion of MOFs within the organic matrix. It was found that the ideal filler loading of MOFs in different polymeric matrices is 10%, increasing the filler loading beyond this value led to formation of aggregates that significantly decreased the MOFs-MMMs performance. Despite the many merits of MOFs-MMMs, the main challenge facing the upscaling and wide commercial application of MOFs-MMMs is the difficult synthesis conditions of the MOFs itself and the stability and sustainability of MOFs-MMMs performance. Investigation of new MOFs and MOFs-MMMs synthesis techniques should be carried out for further industrial applications. Among these new synthesis methods, green MOFs synthesis has been highlighted as low cost, renewable, environmentally friendly and recyclable starting materials for MOFs-MMMs. This paper will focus on the investigation of the effect of different recently introduced MOFs on the performance of MOFs-MMMs in water purification applications.

In this current paper, we report the use of inexpensive, simple electrophoretic deposition (EPD) technique in developing polyaniline (PANI) aqueous colloidal suspension coating on copper (Cu) substrate. Polyaniline nanoparticle films were deposited electrophoretically on the surface of copper sheet electrode. A colloidal suspension with high stability was produced by a liquid polyaniline in the presence of formic acid and acetonitrile as electrolyte for the EPD process. The suspension of the PANI was characterized by measuring the zeta potential of the suspension using zeta-sizer analyser. The PANI coating was used as barrier for corrosion protection of the Cu sheet. Operating parameters such as operating time, applied voltage, and the concentration were used with deposition at the cathode. Characterization such as XRD, SEM, FT-IR, and UV–Vis was carried out, and the corrosion protection offered by the PANI on the Cu surface was examined using potentiodynamic (Tafel) polarization in 3.5% NaCl solution at room temperature. As a result, the optimum parameters for obtaining a homogenous coating on the Cu sheet were attained at the voltage of 15 V and deposition time of 180 s with 50 mg/mL PANI concentration. The attained results indicated inhibition efficiency for PANI deposit of 92.92% indicating protection against corrosion.

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