Evaluation of Iron oxide decorated on graphene oxide (FE3O4/GO) nanohybrid incorporated in PSF membrane at different molar ratios for Congo red rejection

In this study,iron oxide decorated graphene oxide (fe3o4/go) with three different molar ratio of fe decorated on go nanoplates (fe percentage: 5 wt%,10wt%,20 wt%) were synthesized. first,go nanoplates were synthesized using natural graphite powder according to the hummers method. fe3o4/go nanohybrid was then prepared by co-precipitation of fecl3.6h2o and feso4.7h2o with go in the presence of ammonia hydroxide (nh4oh). the nanohybrid was characterized using x-ray diffraction (xrd) and transmission electron microscopy (tem). the polysulfone (psf) mixed matrix membranes containing 0.4 wt% of the nanohybrid were prepared by phase inversion method. the effect of different molar ratio of fe3o4/go nanohybrid on the membrane morphology was examined by several approaches such as porosity & pore size analysis,contact angle,and field emission scanning electron microscopy (fesem) & energy dispersive x-ray (edx). the mixed-matrix membranes performance were evaluated by measuring the membrane permeate flux and congo red (cr) rejection. all the psf-fe3o4/go mixed-matrix membrane showed enhanced hydrophilicity,permeate flux and cr rejection compared to the neat psf membrane. experiment showed that the psf-fe3o4/go mixed-matrix membrane with 5 wt% of fe decorated onto go nanoplates was having the best performance with the highest permeate flux of 112.47 l/m2.h and the cr rejection of 97±2%. © 2017 penerbit utm press. all rights reserved.