Application of high hydrophilic antifouling nanofiltration membranes embedded with mesoporous carbon based nanoparticles for efficient dye removal and salt rejection

In this research, the application of mesoporous carbon CMK-3 and modified CMK-3 (M-CMK-3) to improve antifouling and rejection rate of polyethersulfone NF membrane was assessed. CMK-3 was modified with H-acid to increase hydrophilic characteristics of CMK-3. The synthesized CMK-3 and modified CMK-3 membranes exhibited a high pure water flux and also flux recovery ratio (up to 95%) compared with bare NF membrane. Also, the membranes with optimum additive loading (0.1wt%) of CMK-3 and M-CMK-3 were compared to reject different salts and dyes. From the obtained results, the membrane embedded with M-CMK-3 showed higher rejection rate rather than bare NF membrane (up to 95 % for Na 2 SO 4 and 64% for CaCl 2 ) and also the flux permeability was increased from 6.44 for bare NF membrane to 20.11 kg/m 2 .h for the membrane embedded with M-CMK-3. A higher rejection data for different dyes under different pH conditions (up to 90%) was reported for the synthesized membrane embedded with M-CMK-3. After all, from the obtained data, M-CMK-3 with higher negative surface charge presented a higher performance to remove salts and dyes. This research was aimed to develop cost-effective NF membranes with high antifouling properties and super high filtration capacity for removing dyes and salts from wastewaters.