Efficient wastewater treatment by membranes through constructing tunable antifouling membrane surfaces

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Environmental Engineering
• Polymer Chemistry

Background:

• Membrane fouling remains a significant challenge in wastewater treatment, reducing efficiency and increasing operational costs.
• Developing robust antifouling surfaces is crucial for sustainable water purification technologies.
• Tailoring surface properties of membranes can enhance their performance in treating diverse wastewater streams.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate a facile in situ approach for creating tunable amphiphilic or hydrophilic antifouling membrane surfaces.
• To investigate the performance of these membranes in treating oily and protein-containing wastewater.
• To establish a versatile platform technology for robust antifouling membrane preparation.

Main Methods:

• Utilized wet phase inversion membrane formation process with tailor-made ternary amphiphilic block copolymers.
• Manipulated microphase separation and surface segregation of copolymers to control surface properties.
• Conducted dead-end filtration experiments for oily and protein-containing wastewater treatment.

Main Results:

• Amphiphilic surface membranes achieved >99.5% chemical oxygen demand (COD) retention for oily wastewater with minimal flux decline (6.8%) and high recovery (>99.0%).
• Hydrophilic surface membranes showed 52.6% COD retention for protein-containing wastewater with low flux decline (17.0%) and high recovery (>99.0%).
• Demonstrated excellent antifouling properties and flux recovery after simple hydraulic washing for both membrane types.

Conclusions:

• The in situ approach effectively creates tunable amphiphilic/hydrophilic antifouling membrane surfaces.
• The developed membranes offer high efficiency and robustness for treating diverse wastewater types.
• This technology presents a competitive platform for advanced wastewater treatment applications.