Thin-film nanocomposite NF membrane with GO on macroporous hollow fiber ceramic substrate for efficient heavy metals removal

Abstract The ceramic membrane has been widely used in the wastewater treatment based on the chemical resistance and superior separation performance. A robust and defect-free thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) nanofiltration (NF) membrane on the macroporous hollow fiber ceramic (HFC) substrate was novelly developed for heavy metals removal. Before interfacial polymerization (IP), the aqueous solution of graphene oxide (GO) grafted with ethylenediamine (EDA) was deposited on the HFC substrate by vacuum filtration. Then, a thin polyamide (PA) film was fabricated by EDA and 1,3,5-trimesoyl chloride (TMC), followed by heat treatment. The effects of GO content and EDA concentration on the performance of the NF membrane have been systematically investigated. The results showed that when the GO content was 0.015 mg·mL−1 and the EDA concentration was 0.75 wt.%, the as-prepared eGO3/PA-HFC membrane had a rejection rate of 94.12% for MgCl2 and a pure water flux of 18.03 L·m−2·h−1. Additionally, the removal ability of eGO3/PA-HFC membranes for heavy metal ions was satisfactory (93.33%, 92.73%, 90.45% and 88.35% for Zn2+, Cu2+, Ni2+ and Pb2+, respectively). The study explored further that it was efficient and stable for heavy metal ions removal during 30 h in the simulated tap water and mining wastewater, which indicated that the eGO/PA-HFC membrane has great application potential in wastewater treatment.