Journal of Environmental Biology

Improvement of membrane system for water treatment by

synthesized gold nanoparticles

P.Bharathi^1,2, N.Balasubramanian¹, S.Anitha², V.Vijayabharathi² and Bhuvenswari²

 ¹Department of Chemical Engineering, A.C.Tech Campus, Anna University, Chennai-600 025, India

²Department of Biotechnology, Karpaga Vinayaga College of Engineering and Technology, Kancheepuram-603 308, India

*Corresponding Author E-mail: nbsbala@annauniv.edu

 Publication Data

Paper received:

21 September 2015

Revised received:

14 May 2016

Accepted:

20 August 2016

Abstract

Clean water is an essential requirement for all life and therefore, the societal benefit from effective water treatment methods are significant. There are many different methods to treat contaminated water; one being microfiltration. The surface modification of membranes with nanoparticles one way to address these challenges and hence, improve membrane performance. Recently, successful attempts have been made to deposit the nanoparticles onto the membrane. Gold nanoparticles (AuNps) can be coated on common microfiltration membrane by overnight exposure of the membrane to nanoparticles solution. Membrane's surface can be modified by synthesized AuNps solution, which has an outstanding filtration performance as compared to conventional membranes. In the present study, AuNps supported poly ether sulfone (PES) membrane was characterized by SEM with EDAX analysis. The coated membrane performance was investigated through microfiltration experiment, and the activities were compared with conventional PES membranes. This coating procedure led to increase in the performance of membrane for the application of water treatment.   

 Key words

Gold nanoparticles, Microfiltration, PES membranes, Water treatment 

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