Author Identifier (ORCID)
Mitra Golgoli: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4005-3719
Javad Farahbakhsh: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5032-6493
Mehdi Khiadani: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1703-9342
Masoumeh Zargar: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9811-6156
Abstract
The escalating presence of microplastics (MPs) in wastewater necessitates the investigation of effective tertiary treatment process. Forward osmosis (FO) emerges as an effective non-pressurized membrane process, however, for the effective implementation of FO systems, the development of fouling-resistance FO membranes with high-performance is essential. This study focuses on the integration of MWCNT/UiO-66-NH2 as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) nanocomposites in thin film composite (TFC) FO membranes, harnessing the synergistic power of hybrid nanoparticles in FO membranes. The results showed that the addition of MWCNT/UiO-66-NH2 in the aqueous phase during polyamide formation changed the polyamide surface structure, and enhanced membranes’ hydrophilicity by 44%. The water flux of the modified FO membrane incorporated with 0.1 wt% MWCNTs/UiO-66-NH2 increased by 67% and the reverse salt flux decreased by 22% as in comparison with the control membrane. Moreover, the modified membrane showed improved antifouling behavior against both organic foulant and MPs. The MWCNT/UiO-66-NH2 membrane experienced 35% flux decline while the control membrane experienced 65% flux decline. This proves that the integration of MWCNT/UiO-66-NH2 nanoparticles into TFC FO membranes is a viable approach in creating advanced FO membranes with high antifouling propensity with potential to be expanded further to other membrane applications.
Keywords
[RSTDPub], Forward osmosis, Fouling, Metal-organic frameworks, Microplastics, Multi-walled carbon nanotubes
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
7-1-2024
Volume
359
PubMed ID
38679179
Publication Title
Chemosphere
Publisher
Elsevier
School
School of Engineering
Funding Information
Edith Cowan University
Grant Number
G1005399
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
This is an Authors Accepted Manuscript version of an article published by Elsevier in Chemosphere. The published version is available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2024.142180
Golgoli, M., Farahbakhsh, J., Najafi, M., Khiadani, M., Johns, M. L., & Zargar, M. (2024). Resilient forward osmosis membranes against microplastics fouling enhanced by MWCNTs/UiO-66-NH2 hybrid nanoparticles. Chemosphere, 359, 142180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2024.142180