TY - JOUR
T1 - Cross-linked boron nitride-piperazine amide thin film nanocomposite membranes for rejection and concentration of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
AU - Abdikheibari, Sara
AU - Baskaran, Kanagaratnam
AU - Guijt, Rosanne
AU - Lei, Weiwei
AU - Dumée, Ludovic F.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge Deakin University for funding of SA's PhD scholarship. L.F.D. also acknowledges the Australian Research Council for this support provided through his ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award Fellowship (DECRA 2018 DE180100130). LFD acknowledges financial support from Khalifa University of Science and Technology under project RC2-2019-007.
Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge Deakin University for funding of SA's PhD scholarship. L.F.D. also acknowledges the Australian Research Council for this support provided through his ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award Fellowship (DECRA 2018 DE180100130). LFD acknowledges financial support from Khalifa University of Science and Technology under project RC2‐2019‐007.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC.
PY - 2022/6/1
Y1 - 2022/6/1
N2 - Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)-contaminated wastewaters present major public health risks given the PFAS thermo-chemical stability and its demonstrated adverse impacts on aquatic life, extended to the entire food chain. To date, remediation of PFAS-contaminated wastewaters have been mainly undertaken with poorly cost-effective strategies, involving multi-step processes. Advanced separation systems enabling the selective capture and concentration of PFAS must be developed. In this work, the potential of nanofiltration (NF) membranes to reject short chain length PFAS, potassium nonafluoro-1-butanesulfonate (C4F9SO3K), is demonstrated with both bare polymeric and amine functionalized-boron nitride BN(NH2) nanosheet-decorated membranes. The BN(NH2)-decorated membranes exhibited almost 1.04 times higher permeation upon C4F9SO3K filtration compared to the bare poly(piperazine amide) (PPA) membranes (53 versus 26 L m−2 h−1), while maintaining very high C4F9SO3K rejection levels above 93%. A commercial membrane exhibited similar permeation to BN(NH2)-decorated membrane, but only retained ∼65% of the C4F9SO3K. The improved filtration performance of the BN(NH2)-decorated membrane was rationalized based on advanced characterization results to its enhanced wettability and negative charge density, resulting in weak interactions between the C4F9SO3K and BN(NH2) nanosheets. This communication demonstrates the role and potential of fine surface modifications of NF membranes to support improved separation performance towards PFAS removal.
AB - Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)-contaminated wastewaters present major public health risks given the PFAS thermo-chemical stability and its demonstrated adverse impacts on aquatic life, extended to the entire food chain. To date, remediation of PFAS-contaminated wastewaters have been mainly undertaken with poorly cost-effective strategies, involving multi-step processes. Advanced separation systems enabling the selective capture and concentration of PFAS must be developed. In this work, the potential of nanofiltration (NF) membranes to reject short chain length PFAS, potassium nonafluoro-1-butanesulfonate (C4F9SO3K), is demonstrated with both bare polymeric and amine functionalized-boron nitride BN(NH2) nanosheet-decorated membranes. The BN(NH2)-decorated membranes exhibited almost 1.04 times higher permeation upon C4F9SO3K filtration compared to the bare poly(piperazine amide) (PPA) membranes (53 versus 26 L m−2 h−1), while maintaining very high C4F9SO3K rejection levels above 93%. A commercial membrane exhibited similar permeation to BN(NH2)-decorated membrane, but only retained ∼65% of the C4F9SO3K. The improved filtration performance of the BN(NH2)-decorated membrane was rationalized based on advanced characterization results to its enhanced wettability and negative charge density, resulting in weak interactions between the C4F9SO3K and BN(NH2) nanosheets. This communication demonstrates the role and potential of fine surface modifications of NF membranes to support improved separation performance towards PFAS removal.
KW - boron nitride nanosheets
KW - improved filtration performance
KW - nanofiltration (NF) membranes
KW - Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122527119&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/tqem.21828
DO - 10.1002/tqem.21828
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85122527119
SN - 1088-1913
VL - 31
SP - 425
EP - 432
JO - Environmental Quality Management
JF - Environmental Quality Management
IS - 4
ER -
