Laser synthesized gold- nanoparticles, blend NF membrane for phosphate separation from wastewater
Marwa Shalaby, Heba Abdallah, Adam Cenian, Gaweł Sołowski, Mirosław Sawczak, Ahmed M. Shaban, R. Ramadan
Abstract
That phosphates are a vital part of modern life is a fact. But their natural resource as phosphate rocks is depleting quickly. Different sources of phosphate in wastewaters present a real problem and their use has been banned for soil fertilization in many countries due to pathogens in municipals and presence of other micro-pollutants or heavy metals. In this work, a nanofiltration membrane (NF) will serve as an excellent opportunity to separate trivalent PO43− in a concentrated form and allow mono- and divalent in permeate according to stringent environmental legislation and facilitating a phosphate recovery strategy. Improved fouling resistance and enhanced hydrophilicity were achieved by optimized polymer blend with gold nanoparticles. Rejection of 96.1% was achieved for nanofiltration (NF)-membrane supported with woven polyester, and corresponds to a permeability of 4.72 L/(m2 × h × bar) for 0.1% gold in polymer blend. Alkaline feed water was found to be favourable for this polymeric blend membrane in the presence of gold nanoparticles.