Yahui Shi,Jinhui Huang,Guangming Zeng,Wenjian Cheng,Jianglin Hu,Lixiu Shi,Kaixin Yi
Photocatalytic membranes (PMs), coupling of membrane filtration and photocatalysis , have exhibited the potential for application in the wastewater treatment . In this study, we firstly adopted the supramolecular aggregates of melamine (M), cyanuric acid (C), and urea (U) in specific dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as precursors to prepare carbon nitride MCU-C 3 N 4 with high photocatalytic performance, and a kind of novel-designed photocatalytic membrane was prepared via filtrating the mixture of graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets and MCU-C 3 N 4 on PVDF membrane supports, and then crosslinked using glutaraldehyde (GA) to construct a steady coating on the GO/MCU-C 3 N 4 /PVDF membrane. GO/MCU-C 3 N 4 /PVDF composite membrane exhibited higher permeation flux than that of GO/PVDF membrane and exhibited excellent separation performance for oil-in-water emulsion. A visible light-driven self-cleaning four-stage filtration by a self-built dead-end filtration system was carried out to evaluate membrane antifouling property, and GO/MCU-C 3 N 4 /PVDF membrane (M2) possessed higher flux recovery ratio (FRR) (∼92.36%) and lower irreversible fouling resistance (R ir ) ratio (∼8%) under 30min visible-light irradiation, maintaining relatively higher FRR (>72%) during 4 cycling of four-stage filtrating experiments. GO/MCU-C 3 N 4 /PVDF PMs are equipped with high permeation flux, separation performance, anti-fouling property and stability, indicating potential application in water treatment .
In order to improve the antifouling performance of PVDF membrane, a novel zinc sulfide/graphene oxide/polyvinylidene fluoride (ZnS/GO/PVDF) composite membrane was prepared by immersed phase inversion method. The surface morphology, crystal structure, photocatalytic activity, and antifouling property of the as-prepared membranes were systematically studied. Results showed that the ZnS/GO/PVDF hybrid membranes were successfully fabricated with uniform surface. The hybrid membrane surface possessed higher hydrophilicity with water contact angle decreasing from 77.1° to 62.2°. The permeability of the hybrid membrane was therefore enhanced from 222.9 to 326.1 L/(m 2 hour). Moreover, bovine serum albumin (BSA) retention experiment showed that the hybrid membrane separation was also promoted by 7.2%. The blending of ZnS and GO enhanced the hydrophilic and photocatalytic performances of PVDF membrane, which mitigated the membrane fouling effectively. This novel hybrid membrane could accelerate the practical application of photocatalytic technology in membrane separation process.