Enhanced oil removal from a real polymer production plant by cellulose nanocrystals - Serine incorporated polyethersulfone ultrafiltration membrane

Abstract

As discharging oily wastewater from industries to the environment is a potential threat for the aquatic ecosystem, in this research oil removal from a real case of Kermanshah polymer production plant wastewater was investigated. The focus of this study was on improving the oil rejection performance of polyethersulfone (PES) ultrafiltration membrane due to adding cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) and modified CNC with Serine amino acid (CNC-Ser) in PES mix matrix. From the results, the membranes embedded with CNC-Ser showed better performance in terms of water flux, flux recovery ratio and oil rejection (higher than 97%) compared to the modified membranes with CNC. The lowest water contact angle (41.370), the smoother surface and higher negative surface potential (-24 mv) was achieved for the optimum loading of CNC-Ser. Besides, long-term performance of the membranes with optimum loading of CNC and CNC-Ser were compared in both dead-end and cross-flow set-ups.