Membranes are an efficient way to treat emulsified heavy metal-based wastewater, but they generally come with a trade-off between permeability and selectivity. In this research, the amine and sulphonic groups on the inner and outer surface of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) were first modified by a chemical approach. Then, MSNs with amine and sulphonic groups were utilized as new inorganic nanofiller to fabricate mixed matrix polysulfone (PSU) nanocomposite membranes using the classical phase inversion approach. The resultant nanoparticles and membranes were characterized by their physico-chemical characteristics as well as determination of pure water permeability along with cadmium and zinc ion removal. Embedding nanoparticles resulted in a significant rise in the water permeability as a result of changes in the surface properties and porosity of the membrane. Furthermore, the efficiency of developed membranes to remove cadmium and zinc was significantly improved by more than 90% due to the presence of functional groups on nanoparticles. The functionalized-MSNs/PSU nanocomposite membrane has the potential to be an effective industrial effluent removal membrane.
Keywords: functionalized mesoporous silica nanoparticles; heavy metal removal; nanocomposite membrane; polysulfone.