MXene (Ti3C2Tx)/Cellulose Acetate Mixed-Matrix Membrane Enhances Fouling Resistance and Rejection in the Crossflow Filtration Process

Reem S Azam; Dema A Almasri; Radwan Alfahel; Alaa H Hawari; Mohammad K Hassan; Ahmed A Elzatahry; Khaled A Mahmoud

doi:10.3390/membranes12040406

MXene (Ti₃C₂T_x)/Cellulose Acetate Mixed-Matrix Membrane Enhances Fouling Resistance and Rejection in the Crossflow Filtration Process

Membranes (Basel). 2022 Apr 6;12(4):406. doi: 10.3390/membranes12040406.

Authors

Reem S Azam¹, Dema A Almasri¹, Radwan Alfahel², Alaa H Hawari², Mohammad K Hassan³, Ahmed A Elzatahry⁴, Khaled A Mahmoud^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI), Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Qatar Foundation, Doha P.O. Box 34110, Qatar.
² Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, Qatar University, Doha P.O. Box 2713, Qatar.
³ Center for Advanced Materials, Qatar University, Doha P.O. Box 2713, Qatar.
⁴ Materials Science and Technology Program, College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University, Doha P.O. Box 2713, Qatar.

Abstract

Obstacles in the membrane-based separation field are mainly related to membrane fouling. This study involved the synthesis and utilization of covalently crosslinked MXene/cellulose acetate mixed matrix membranes with MXene at different concentrations (CCAM-0% to CCAM-12%) for water purification applications. The membranes' water flux, dye, and protein rejection performances were compared using dead-end (DE) and crossflow (CF) filtration. The fabricated membranes, especially CCAM-10%, exhibited high hydrophilicity, good surface roughness, significantly high water flux, high water uptake, and high porosity. A significantly higher flux was observed in CF filtration relative to DE filtration. Moreover, in CF filtration, the CCAM-10% membrane exhibited 96.60% and 99.49% rejection of methyl green (MG) and bovine serum albumin (BSA), respectively, while maintaining a flux recovery ratio of 67.30% and an irreversible fouling ratio at (R_ir) of 32.70, indicating good antifouling performance. Hence, this study suggests that covalent modification of cellulose acetate membranes with MXene significantly improves the performance and fouling resistance of membranes for water filtration in CF mode relative to DE mode.

Keywords: MXene; antifouling; crossflow; membrane filtration.