Hydrophobic Mixed Matrix Membranes for Oil/Water Separation

Abstract

The discharge of oily wastewater without proper treatment and the occurrence of oil spills cause a wide range of adverse environmental consequences and destroy aquatic life. Membrane technology outperformed the conventional procedures for oil emulsion separation due to its improved performance, reduced cost, removal capacity, and greater eco-friendly. In this study, a hydrophobic iron oxide-oleylamine (Fe-Ol) nanohybrid was synthesized and incorporated into polyethersulfone (PES) to prepare PES/Fe-Ol hydrophobic ultrafiltration mixed matrix membranes (MMMs). Several characterization techniques were performed to characterize the synthesized nanohybrid and fabricated membranes, including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), porosity, contact angle, and zeta potential. Moreover, the membranes' performance was assessed using a surfactant-stabilized water-in-hexane emulsion as a feed and a dead-end vacuum filtration setup. The modified membranes possessed higher water rejection efficiency and filtrate flux. The 1.5 wt% PES/Fe-Ol MMM exhibited excellent performance with a 97.4% emulsion separation rate and 1020.4 LMH flux. Furthermore, the re-usability and antifouling properties of the membrane were examined over five cycles. The membrane possessed a slight depletion in its performance at the end of the test; the water rejection efficacy and flux recovery ratio decreased from 97.4% and 95.8%, respectively, for the first cycle to 93.9% and 84.5% after the fifth cycle, demonstrating its great potential for use in water-in-oil separation.

Date of Award	Apr 2023
Original language	American English
Supervisor	SHADI Hasan (Supervisor)