(593b) Efficient Removal of Micro- and Nano- Plastic from Water Using Poly (Ionic Liquid) Membranes: Fabrication, Characterization, and Performance

Micro- and Nano-plastics (MNPs) are the potential emerging plastic-related pollutants that have negative impacts on fresh water and other environmental media. As these MNPs coming from various sources, predicting their biological and ecological impact can be complicated. Their toxicity is extremely harmful to human being causing cell damage, liver failure and cell death. The current conventional water treatment methods, such as coagulation, flocculation, photocatalytic degradation, and microbial bioremediation, showed a lack of efficiency in removing different MNPs. In recent years, Ionic liquids (ILs) have been considered as a potential candidate for removing contaminant from water based on liquid-liquid extraction due to their properties such as hydrophobicity, tunable moiety, and high ionic conductivity. However, the limiting factor in using IL for the removal of contaminants from water is the high viscosity (>104 cP) that limit the rate of mass transfer and significant mass loss during the extraction process. Poly (ionic liquid) membranes are an emerging new class of IL-based membranes containing repeated units of IL which possess synergistic properties of membranes and IL. In the current study, imidazolium based ([C₈mim][Tf₂N]) PIL membranes were systematically synthesized with polymerization reaction and characterized. The [C₈mim][Tf₂N] showed more than 99% removal of micro and nano polystyrene from water. Therefore it is expected that the PIL membrane shows a similar removal performance, however with no loss of IL during the process. Then the performance of IL membrane was measured in terms of water permeability test and polystyrene nano plastic (PSNPs) rejection from PSNPs feedwater.