A novel UiO-66/PSF-composite membrane for the rejection of multiple antibiotics: Numerical simulation and experiment...

UiO-66 nanoparticles were fabricated and applied to the support layer of a novel, thin-film nanocomposite membrane for treatment of wastewater containing antibiotics. The incorporation of the UiO-66 particle structure improved the stability and permeability of the membrane. When the membrane with 0.5 wt% of UiO-66 particles was used to treat antibiotic wastewater by a forward-osmosis process, the water flux reached 50.78 LMH (L·m^-2·h^-1), an increase of 46% compared with the membrane without UiO-66 particles. The rejections of six types of antibiotics improved to over 99.94%. Even trimethoprims rejection rate enhanced to 100% because antibiotics exposed on the surface of the UiO-66 nanoparticles. The forward osmosis model could explain the mechanism of permeation, and predict water flux and rejection. Thus, a novel mathematical model with Gaussian pore distribution and different potential functions was proposed to process multiple-solute transportation and rejection on the charged surface of the membrane. The rejection of six antibiotics was predicted by the iteration algorithm, and the errors of water flux, salt flux, and rejection rates were less than 1.3 LMH, 0.2 gMH (g·m^-2 h^-1), and 1.7% between the predictions and the experiments, respectively. The accuracy of the proposed model was higher than the model published before. Therefore, the experimental results and the theoretical model provide a significant insight into the synthesis thin-film composite membranes and application of water purification.