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Special Issue "Polymer Nanocomposite Membranes for Environmental Applications"

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A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Polymer Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (5 November 2022) | Viewed by 17507

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Sudip Chakraborty

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Guest Editor

Department of Computer Engineering, Modeling, Electronics and Systems (D.I.M.E.S.), University of Calabria, Rende, Italy
Interests: photo catalysis; membrane reactor; nanocatalyst; plasmonics nanoparticle; smart polymer
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Woei Jye Lau

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Guest Editor

Advanced Membrane Technology Research Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai 81310, Johor, Malaysia
Interests: Polymeric hollow fiber membrane fabrication and characterization; Wastewater Treatment; Membrane contactor; Membrane Separation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is devoted to one of the most attractive fields in membrane science and technology research. The advances in inorganic nanomaterials development (0D, 1D and 2D) over the past decade have resulted in significant growth of its applications for various processes including membrane separation. There is a large number of studies successfully demonstrating the positive roles of using inorganic nanomaterials in improving membrane intrinsic properties and thus its filtration efficiency. Successful cases have been reported for the mixed matrix membranes for water and gas separation, polyamide thin film nanocomposite membranes for water desalination, adsorptive membranes for heavy metal ions removal, organic/inorganic hybrid membranes for pervaporation of organic solvent, etc. This Special Issue focuses on the development of polymer nanocomposite materials for membrane fabrication and modification and aims to give an insight into the design of advanced nanocomposite membranes for environmental applications.

Dr. Sudip Chakraborty
Dr. Woei Jye Lau
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Nanomaterials
Membranes
Polymer
Environment
Water
Gas Separation

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 5337 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Synthesis and Characterization of Blended Cellulose Acetate Membranes

and

Polymers 2022, 14(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym14010004 - 21 Dec 2021

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3704

Abstract

The casting and preparation of ultrafiltration ZnO modified cellulose acetate membrane (CA/ZnO) were investigated in this work. CA membranes were fabricated by phase inversion using dimethylformamide (DMF) as a solvent and ZnO as nanostructures materials. Ultrafiltration (UF) performance, mechanical stability, morphology, contact angle, and porosity were evaluated on both CA- and ZnO-modified CA samples. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to determine the morphology of the membranes, showing different pore sizes either on rough surfaces and cross-sections of the samples, an asymmetric structure and ultra-scale pores with an average pore radius 0.0261 to 0.045 µm. Contact angle measurements showed the highest hydrophobicity values for the samples with no ZnO addition, ranging between 48° and 82.7° on their airside. The permeability values decreased with the increasing CA concentration in the casting solution, as expected; however, ZnO-modified membranes produced lower flux than the pure CA ones. Nevertheless, ZnO modified CA membranes have higher surface pore size, pore density and porosity, and improved surface hydrophilicity compared with pure CA membranes. The results indicated that the incorporated nano-ZnO tends to limit the packing of the polymer chains onto the membrane structure while showing antifouling properties leading to better hydrophilicity and permeation with consistent UF applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymer Nanocomposite Membranes for Environmental Applications)

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13 pages, 9715 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ultrafiltration of α-Lactalbumin Protein: Acquaintance of the Filtration Performance by Membrane Structure and Surface Alteration

Aulia Chintia Ambarita

and

Polymers 2021, 13(21), 3632; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13213632 - 21 Oct 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1731

Abstract

α-Lactalbumin is an essential protein with multiple roles in physiological and the nutritional functionalities, such as diabetic prevention, blood pressure stabilization, and cancer cell inhibition. In the present work, polyethersulfone (PES)-based membranes were developed by incorporating Pluronic F127 and carbon nanotubes with single- and multi-walled dimensions (Sw-Cnts and Mw-Cnts) as additives. The resulting membranes were evaluated for use in the filtration of α-lactalbumin protein solution. Four series of membranes, including PES pristine membrane, were fabricated via the phase inversion process. The characteristics of the membrane samples were analyzed in terms of morphology, membrane surface hydrophilicity and roughness, and surface chemistry. The characterization results show that the incorporation of additive increased the surface wettability by reducing the surface water contact angle from 80.4° to 64.1° by adding F127 and Mw-Cnt additives. The highest pure water permeability of 135 L/(m²·h·bar) was also exhibited by the PES/F127/Mw-Cnt membrane. The performance of the modified membranes was clearly better than the pristine PSF for α-lactalbumin solution filtration. The permeability of α-lactalbumin solution increased from 9.0 L/(m²·h·bar) for the pristine PES membrane to 10.5, 11.0 and 11.5 L/(m²·h·bar) for membranes loaded with Pluronic F127, Sw-Cnts, and Mw-Cnts, respectively. Those increments corresponded to 17, 22, and 28%. Such increments could be achieved without altering the α-lactalbumin rejections of 80%. Remarkably, the rejection for the membrane loaded with Sw-Cnts even increased to 89%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymer Nanocomposite Membranes for Environmental Applications)

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15 pages, 4040 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Cigarette Butt Waste as Material for Phase Inverted Membrane Fabrication Used for Oil/Water Emulsion Separation

Susilawati Susilawati

Saiful Prayogi

Thanitporn Narkkun

and

Kajornsak Faungnawakij

Polymers 2021, 13(12), 1907; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13121907 - 08 Jun 2021

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3908

Abstract

The increasing rate of oil and gas production has contributed to a release of oil/water emulsion or mixtures to the environment, becoming a pressing issue. At the same time, pollution of the toxic cigarette butt has also become a growing concern. This study explored utilization of cigarette butt waste as a source of cellulose acetate-based (CA) polymer to develop a phase inverted membrane for treatment of oil/water emulsion and compare it with commercial polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) and polysulfone (PSF). Results show that the CA-based membrane from waste cigarette butt offers an eco-friendly material without compromising the separation efficiency, with a pore size range suitable for oil/water emulsion filtration with the rejection of >94.0%. The CA membrane poses good structural property similar to the established PVDF and PSF membranes with equally asymmetric morphology. It also poses hydrophilicity properties with a contact angle of 74.5°, lower than both PVDF and PSF membranes. The pore size of CA demonstrates that the CA is within the microfiltration range with a mean flow pore size of 0.17 µm. The developed CA membrane shows a promising oil/water emulsion permeability of 180 L m⁻² h⁻¹ bar⁻¹ after five filtration cycles. However, it still suffers a high degree of irreversible fouling (>90.0%), suggesting potential future improvements in terms of membrane fouling management. Overall, this study demonstrates a sustainable approach to addressing oil/water emulsion pollution treated CA membrane from cigarette butt waste. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymer Nanocomposite Membranes for Environmental Applications)

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14 pages, 2922 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Sustainable Recycling Alternative: Electrospun PET-Membranes for Air Nanofiltration

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Polymers 2021, 13(7), 1166; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13071166 - 05 Apr 2021

Cited by 32 | Viewed by 5191

Abstract

Currently, the inappropriate disposal of plastic materials, such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) wastes, is a major environmental problem since it can cause serious damage to the environment and contribute to the proliferation of pathogenic microorganisms. To reduce this accumulation, PET-type bottles have been recycled, and also explored in other applications such as the development of membranes. Thus, this research aims to develop electrospun microfiber membranes from PET wastes and evaluate their use as an air filter media. The solution concentrations varied from 20 to 12% wt% of PET wastes, which caused a reduction of the average fiber diameter by 60% (from 3.25 µm to 1.27 µm). The electrospun filter membranes showed high mechanical resistance (4 MPa), adequate permeability (4.4 × 10⁻⁸ m²), high porosity (96%), and provided a high collection efficiency (about 100%) and low-pressure drop (212 Pa, whose face velocity was 4.8 cm/s) for the removal of viable aerosol nanoparticles. It can include bacteria, fungi, and also viruses, mainly SARS-CoV-2 (about 100 nm). Therefore, the developed electrospun membranes can be applied as indoor air filters, where extremely clean air is needed (e.g., hospitals, clean zones of pharmaceutical and food industry, aircraft, among others). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymer Nanocomposite Membranes for Environmental Applications)

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17 pages, 3212 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Novel, Environment-Friendly Cellulose-Based Derivatives for Tetraconazole Removal from Aqueous Solution

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Polymers 2021, 13(3), 450; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13030450 - 30 Jan 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2126

Abstract

In this study, cellulose-based derivatives with heterocyclic moieties were synthesized by reacting cellulose with furan-2-carbonyl chloride (Cell-F) and pyridine-2,6-dicarbonyl dichloride (Cell-P). The derivatives were evaluated as adsorbents for the pesticide tetraconazole from aqueous solution. The prepared adsorbents were characterized by SEM, TGA, IR, and H¹ NMR instruments. To maximize the adsorption efficiency of tetraconazole, the optimum conditions of contact time, pH, temperature, adsorbent dose, and initial concentration of adsorbate were determined. The highest removal percentage of tetraconazole from water was 98.51% and 95% using Cell-F and Cell-P, respectively. Underivatized nanocellulose was also evaluated as an adsorbent for tetraconazole for comparison purpose, and it showed a removal efficiency of about 91.73%. The best equilibrium adsorption isotherm model of each process was investigated based on the experimental and calculated R² values of Freundlich and Langmuir models. The adsorption kinetics were also investigated using pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, and intra-particle-diffusion adsorption kinetic models. The Van’t Hoff plot was also studied for each adsorption to determine the changes in adsorption enthalpy (∆H), Gibbs free energy (∆G), and entropy (∆S). The obtained results showed that adsorption by Cell-F and Cell-P follow the Langmuir adsorption isotherm and the mechanism follows the pseudo-second-order kinetic adsorption model. The obtained negative values of the thermodynamic parameter ∆G (−4.693, −4.792, −5.549 kJ) for nanocellulose, Cell-F, and Cell-P, respectively, indicate a spontaneous adsorption process. Cell-F and Cell-P could be promising absorbents on a commercial scale for tetraconazole and other pesticides. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymer Nanocomposite Membranes for Environmental Applications)

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