enhancing antifouling performance of polysulfone membranes via graphene oxide incorporation for humic acid filtration

This study investigates the effect of incorporating graphene oxide (go) nanosheets at various concentrations into polysulfone (psf) membranes for the filtration of humic acid (ha). go was synthesized from graphite using a modified hummers method and characterized by ftir and xrd analyses. mixed-matrix psf/go membranes containing 0–0.5 wt% go were fabricated using the non-solvent induced phase separation (nips) method. characterization results showed that the addition of go up to 0.3 wt% enhanced membrane hydrophilicity, mechanical strength, and pure water flux. antifouling experiments confirmed that incorporating go significantly improved reversible fouling and flux recovery ratio (frr) compared to the neat psf membrane. these improvements were attributed to the presence of hydrophilic oxygen-containing functional groups distributed within the membrane matrix.