Fabrication and characterization of a polysulfone-graphene oxide nanocomposite membrane for arsenate rejection from water

Background: nowadays, study and application of modified membranes for water treatment have been consideredsignificantly. the aim of this study was to prepare and characterize a polysulfone (psf)/graphene oxide (go)nanocomposite membrane and to evaluate for arsenate rejection from water.materials and methods: the nanocomposite psf/go membrane was fabricated using wet phase inversionmethod. the effect of go on the synthesized membrane morphology and hydrophilicity was studied by usingfe-sem, afm, contact angle, zeta potential, porosity and pore size tests. the membrane performance was alsoevaluated in terms of pure water flux and arsenate rejection.results: atr-ftir confirmed the presence of hydrophilic functional groups on the surface of the prepared go.fe-sem micrographs showed that with increasing go content in the casting solution, the sub-layer structure wasenhanced and the drop like voids in the pure psf membrane changed to macrovoids in psf/go membrane alongwith increase in porosity. afm images indicated lower roughness of modified membrane compared to pure psfmembrane. furthermore, contact angle measurement and permeation experiment showed that by increasing goup to 1 wt%, membrane hydrophilicity and pure water flux were increased. for psf/go-1, pure water flux wascalculated about 50 l/m2h at 4 bar. the maximum rejection was obtained by psf/go-2 about 83.65 % at 4 bar.moreover, it was revealed that arsenate rejection depended on solution ph values. it was showed that withincreasing ph, the rejection increased.conclusions: this study showed that application of go as an additive to psf casting solution could enhance themembrane hydrophilicity, porosity, flux and arsenate rejection.