Graphene-based electro-conductive anti-fouling membranes for the treatment of oil sands produced water

Amin Karkooti; Masoud Rastgar; Neda Nazemifard; Mohtada Sadrzadeh

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135365

Graphene-based electro-conductive anti-fouling membranes for the treatment of oil sands produced water

Sci Total Environ. 2020 Feb 20:704:135365. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135365. Epub 2019 Nov 23.

Authors

Amin Karkooti¹, Masoud Rastgar², Neda Nazemifard¹, Mohtada Sadrzadeh³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering, 12-237 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1H9, Canada.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, 10-367 Donadeo Innovation Center for Engineering, Advanced Water Research Lab (AWRL), University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1H9, Canada.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, 10-367 Donadeo Innovation Center for Engineering, Advanced Water Research Lab (AWRL), University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1H9, Canada. Electronic address: sadrzade@ualberta.ca.

PMID: 31796283
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135365

Abstract

In this study, a thin layer of polyaniline (PANI)-reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was laminated on polyethersulfone (PES) support by pressure-assisted technique. Organic fouling on the resulting robust and electro-conductive membranes reduced significantly by applying an external electric field. The electrical conductivity of pristine PANI film was 0.46 S/m while it was increased up to 84.53 S/m by adding appropriate amount of rGO. Both anodic and cathodic potentials in a wide range were applied to the prepared membranes using synthetic sodium alginate and real oil sands boiler feed water (BFW) waste of Alberta, Canada. Filtration tests showed that fouling resistance of electro-oxidative membranes towards sodium alginate improved, and 31.9% flux decline recovered when 2 V anodic cell potential was applied. By increasing the applied voltage from 3 V to 9 V, the antifouling property of membrane, as well as flux recovery ratio (FRR), improved dramatically and reached to 97.47% in the anodic setting. Such a significant improvement was attributed to electrostatic repulsive force between foulant and membrane surface, massive gas bubble generation, and electro-oxidation reactions. The cathodic electro-reduction configuration was also tested for BFW, where water flux decline and rejection performance were both improved by elevating electric potential.

Keywords: Electro-conductive membranes; Nanocomposites; Organic fouling; Reduced graphene oxide; Ultrafiltration.