Impact of Silver-Decorated Graphene Oxide (Ag-GO) towards Improving the Characteristics of Nanohybrid Polysulfone Membranes

Abstract

The utilization of membranes has been extensively employed in the treatment of water and wastewater. Membrane fouling, attributed to the hydrophobic nature of membranes, constitutes a noteworthy concern in the realm of membrane separation. The mitigation of fouling can be achieved through the modification of membrane characteristics, including but not limited to hydrophilicity, morphology, and selectivity. In this study, a nanohybrid polysulfone (PSf) membrane embedded with silver–graphene oxide (Ag-GO) was fabricated to overcome problems related to biofouling. The embedment of Ag-GO nanoparticles (NPs) is the aim towards producing membranes with antimicrobial properties. The fabricated membranes at different compositions of NPs (0 wt%, 0.3 wt%, 0.5 wt%, and 0.8 wt%) are denoted as M0, M1, M2, and M3, respectively. These PSf/Ag-GO membranes were characterized using FTIR, water contact angle (WCA) goniometer, FESEM, and salt rejection. The additions of GO significantly improved the hydrophilicity of PSf membranes. An additional OH peak at 3380.84 cm−1 of the nanohybrid membrane from FTIR spectra may be related to hydroxyl (-OH) groups of GO. The WCA of the fabricated membranes decreased from 69.92° to 54.71°, which confirmed the improvement in its hydrophilicity. In comparison to the pure PSf membrane, the morphology of the finger-like structure of the fabricated nanohybrid membrane slightly bent with a larger bottom part. Among the fabricated membranes, M2 achieved the highest iron (Fe) removal, up to 93%. This finding proved that the addition of 0.5 wt% Ag-GO NPs enhanced the membrane water permeability together with its performance of ionic solute removal (Fe2+) from synthetic groundwater. In conclusion, embedding a small amount of Ag-GO NPs successfully improved the hydrophilicity of PSf membranes and was able to achieve high removal of Fe at 10–100 mg L−1 towards purification of groundwater for safe drinking water.

A review of current developments in graphene oxide–polysulfone derived membranes for water remediation

“…136 Suhalim et al reported a PSF–GO–Ag nanocomposite membrane with a water flux of 141.6 L m −2 h −1 , a contact angle of 54.71°, rejection of 78.5% and 78% porosity. 137 GO for membrane preparation was obtained from graphite powder (raw material) by employing HM. A GO–Ag nano-hybrid was prepared in a two step process.…”

Recent Advances in the Development of Sustainable Composite Materials used as Membranes in Microbial Fuel Cells

“…Some other metals, such as silver, [86] iron, [87] palladium, [88] and even metalloid silicon [89] have also been reported in the fabrication of composite membranes for MFC. Suhalim et al., [90] in a recent review, have detailed the potential of silver in polymer blended composite membranes; the listed benefits include antifouling, antibacterial, modifiable hydrophobicity and wettability, increased permeability of the water flux; increasing the Ag concentrate, improved membrane porosity and pore size. Kugarajah and Dharmalingam [86] fabricated a CM using different concentrations of Ag as an additive in Sulphonated Poly Ether Ether Ketone (SPEEK).…”