Deep Eutectic Solvent Coated Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles Based Polysulfone Membrane to Mitigate Environmental Toxicology

Saif-Ur-Rehman; Muhammad Shozab Mehdi; Muhammad Fakhar-E-Alam; Muhammad Asif; Javed Rehman; Razan A Alshgari; Muddasar Jamal; Shafiq Uz Zaman; Muhammad Umar; Sikander Rafiq; Nawshad Muhammad; Junaid Bin Fawad; Saiful Arifin Shafiee

doi:10.3390/molecules28207162

Deep Eutectic Solvent Coated Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles Based Polysulfone Membrane to Mitigate Environmental Toxicology

Molecules. 2023 Oct 19;28(20):7162. doi: 10.3390/molecules28207162.

Authors

Saif-Ur-Rehman^{1

2}, Muhammad Shozab Mehdi³, Muhammad Fakhar-E-Alam⁴, Muhammad Asif⁴, Javed Rehman^{5

6

7}, Razan A Alshgari⁸, Muddasar Jamal^{1

2

9}, Shafiq Uz Zaman³, Muhammad Umar³, Sikander Rafiq¹⁰, Nawshad Muhammad¹¹, Junaid Bin Fawad¹, Saiful Arifin Shafiee⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, Defence Road, Off Raiwind Road, Lahore 54000, Punjab, Pakistan.
² Interdisciplinary Research Center in Biomedical Materials, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, Defence Road, Off Raiwind Road, Lahore 54000, Punjab, Pakistan.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology, Topi 23460, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
⁴ Department of Physics, GC University Faisalabad, Faisalabad 38000, Punjab, Pakistan.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China.
⁶ Department of Chemistry, Kulliyyah of Science, International Islamic University, Malaysia, Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, Kuantan 25200, Pahang, Malaysia.
⁷ MEU Research Unit, Middle East University, Amman 541350, Jordan.
⁸ Chemistry Department, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.
⁹ Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar 32610, Perak, Malaysia.
¹⁰ Department of Chemical, Polymer and Composite Materials Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, New Campus, Lahore 39161, Punjab, Pakistan.
¹¹ Department of Dental Materials, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Khyber Medical University, Peshawar 25100, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

Abstract

In this study, ceria nanoparticles (NPs) and deep eutectic solvent (DES) were synthesized, and the ceria-NP's surfaces were modified by DES to form DES-ceria NP filler to develop mixed matrix membranes (MMMs). For the sake of interface engineering, MMMs of 2%, 4%, 6% and 8% filler loadings were fabricated using solution casting technique. The characterizations of SEM, FTIR and TGA of synthesized membranes were performed. SEM represented the surface and cross-sectional morphology of membranes, which indicated that the filler is uniformly dispersed in the polysulfone. FTIR was used to analyze the interaction between the filler and support, which showed there was no reaction between the polymer and DES-ceria NPs as all the peaks were consistent, and TGA provided the variation in the membrane materials with respect to temperature, which categorized all of the membranes as very stable and showed that the trend of stability increases with respect to DES-ceria NPs filler loading. For the evaluation of efficiency of the MMMs, the gas permeation was tested. The permeability of CO₂ was improved in comparison with the pristine Polysulfone (PSF) membrane and enhanced selectivities of 35.43 (α_CO2/CH4) and 39.3 (α_CO2/N2) were found. Hence, the DES-ceria NP-based MMMs proved useful in mitigating CO₂ from a gaseous mixture.

Keywords: ceria nanoparticles; deep eutectic solvents; gas separation; interface engineering; membranes.

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the Researchers Supporting Project Number (RSP2023R265), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and also supported by the International Islamic University Malaysia Research Management Centre Grant (RMCG20-038-0038).