Novel translucent hollow fiber polyvinylidene fluoride photocatalytic membrane for highly efficient oil-produced wastewater treatment: The role of translucency on degradation efficiency

• Published in: Chemical Engineering Research and Design
• Main Author: Kannathasan K.; Jaafar J.; Suhaimin N.S.; Jafri N.N.M.; Samitsu S.; Alias N.H.; Ismail A.F.; Matsuura T.; Othman M.H.D.; Rahman M.A.; Aziz F.; Yusof N.; Qtaishat M.R.; Ismail M.I.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institution of Chemical Engineers 2023
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85170081017&doi=10.1016%2fj.cherd.2023.08.019&partnerID=40&md5=0b156f694a0286b7c28dbbcc1ed6db9f

A novel method, Thermally Modified Non-Solvent Induced Phase Separation (T-NIPS) has been developed to fabricate translucent hollow fiber (THF) photocatalytic membrane for membrane's photodegradation efficiency enhancement. The process involves two-step temperature treatment that attacks crystalline property of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF). Graphitic carbon nitride in a modified morphological structure (hollow nanofiber) was used as photocatalyst to investigate the effect of translucency on membrane's photodegradation efficiency. UV-Vis analysis coupled with FTIR highlighted different crystalline phase appearance and membrane's translucency. The membranes showed high translucency, ranging from 60.0% to 93.9%, with THF-PVDF/PVP-GCN (2.0) exhibiting the highest. The filtration experiment showed that membrane with GCN photocatalyst had high PWF (1200 L/m2h) and rejection (90%) OPW compared to neat THF-PVDFs. In suspended mode, GCN demonstrated an impressive photodegradation efficiency of 99.98%. When immobilized in opaque PVDF membrane, the photodegradation has decreased substantially to 49.40%. However, when immobilized in a translucent PVDF membrane, the photodegradation efficiency of HN-GCN significantly improved compared to the opaque PVDF membrane, reaching 95%. Translucent membrane was subjected to five cycle regeneration test and showed 90% recovery even after the fifth cycle. The 10% reduction in the recovery was investigated using FESEM analysis revealed that there is a cake layer formation on the membrane surface. Therefore, this study proved that translucency of membrane has significant effect on immobilized photocatalyst's photocatalytic efficiency. © 2023 Institution of Chemical Engineers