Fouling evaluation of PES/ZnO mixed matrix hollow fiber membrane

One of the recently used techniques in mitigating the membrane fouling is by incorporating zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) into the polymer matrix. To investigate the changes caused by the presence of ZnO-NPs in the fouling of polyethersulfone (PES)/ZnO mixed matrix (MM) hollow fiber (HF) membrane, different ZnO-NPs loading (0.5, 2, 3.62, 5 wt.%) were incorporated in PES matrix. Fouling evaluations were carried out based on the variations in the surface properties of the HF membranes such as surface roughness, surface hydrophilicity, membrane pore size, and surface charge. Humic acid (HA) solution was used as a model for fouling evaluation. The performance of the optimized MM HF membrane was evaluated by treating with river water. When HA solution was used, it was shown that the fouling resistance of MM HF membranes decreases as compared with the pristine PES membrane. However, the optimized membrane shows an improvement in fouling resistance when tested with river water. The increase in surface hydrophilicity, surface roughness and surface charge of the MM membrane were found to be dominant in mitigating the river water fouling. The results demonstrated that the river water fouling could be alleviated with the presence of ZnO-NPs in PES membrane.