Attachment of zirconium oxide nanoparticles (ZrO2 NPs) onto polysulfone hollow fiber membranes (PSF HFMs) surface by self-polymerized L-DOPA to improve membrane performance

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Drinking water shortage is one of most important problem needs to be solved. And membrane is a major material for waste water treatment and seawater desalination. However, membrane is not perfect enough. Flux, antifouling property and rejection of membrane are still in need of improving. No matter the modification of the composite of membrane, or the modification of the surface of membrane is under research from a lot of scientists. While, in this research, we focused on the surface modification of polysulfone(PSF) with zirconium oxide nanoparticle by self-polymerized L-DOPA. Attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) results of PSF and L-DOPA modified PSF showed that the L-DOPA indeed attached onto the surface of PSF membranes when the PSF HFMs are in the alkaline solution of L-DOPA. What more, Energy-dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) results showed that the Zirconium(IV) Oxide Nnaoparticles been coated on the PSF hollow fiber membranes by L-DOPA. The decreasing of contact angle after PSF been modified improved that the hydrophilicity can be increased by L-DOPA. Furthermore, the water flux of the PSF was also increased while the rejection to humic acid and BSA remains around 97%. For the antifouling property to humic acid, the flux recovery ration of both PSF and L-DOPA-ZrO2 modified PSF were above 80%. That is to say, L-DOPA- ZrO2 can improve the PSF hollow fiber membranes performance on hydrophilicity and water filtration.