(569e) Development of Graphene Oxide-Coated Polyethersulfone Hollow Fiber Membranes with Improved Antifouling Property

Membrane technology has been used widely in many separation applications. However, membrane fouling, which is the adsorption of particulates or compounds on the membrane surface forming a layer or the blockage of membrane pores, is the biggest issue with this technique. For fouling remediation, cleaning is required which accounts for additional operational cost and reduces the membrane durability as well. Although, there are many methods for the surface modification of membrane such as blending, grafting, cross linking for fouling mitigation. Coating is an emerging membrane modification method. Membrane coating is the formation of a layer on the surface of membrane. It is one of the cheapest methods of membrane surface modification because it does not involve any expensive equipment, and additional treatment steps after membrane fabrication. Graphene oxide (GO) is one of the promising nanomaterials, which provides good mechanical strength, antifouling property, outstanding antimicrobial property against different bacterial species, hydrophilic in nature because of presence of carboxyl, hydroxyl and epoxy functional groups. In this study, GO was synthesized by the modified Hummer’s method. The prepared GO was characterized for surface morphology, functionality and elemental analysis. GO solution was used as a bore solution to coat the lumen of the hollow fiber membranes (HFMs) during their fabrication. GO-coated HFMs were characterized by different imaging and spectroscopy techniques, which confirmed the coating of GO layer on the membrane surface. Minor decrease in pure water permeability of modified membrane was measured, however, a considerable improvement in the antifouling property was measured. Thus, this study presents a facile method to develop improved fouling resistant GO-coated HFMs for separation applications.