The major polluting aspects of our global fashion industries are the textile wastewater that turn black all our freshwater reservoirs. Textile wastewater is a primary source of environmental pollution, contaminating surface and subsurface water, soil, and air. Textile wastewater, resulting from dyeing, printing, sizing, bleaching, and washing processes, mixes with river water, thereby exacerbating pollution. Wastewater used for irrigation contains heavy metals that can be transferred to fruits and vegetables, posing adverse impacts on human health. Proper management and remedial measures have emerged as urgent challenges worldwide. and urbanisation have led to the contamination of the Earth's soil and water resources. Clean water is now a vital requirement for ensuring better human health. Rapid industrial growth, increasing populations, and urbanisation have led to the contamination of the Earth's soil and water resources. Previously, several conventional methods were employed for wastewater treatment, including electrochemical methods (oxidation and reduction), ozonation, hydrogen peroxide treatment, and bleaching. The major drawback of these techniques is the decomposition of by-products generated during treatment. Nano-filtration through membrane technology is one of biggest solutions of industrial wastewater treatment but fouling of membrane is the major limitation of previous work. In this research, single layer MoS2 nanosheet was developed by Liquid-phase exfoliation method, then hydrothermal method was used for the fabrication of single layer MoS2-TNT nanocomposites. A modified In-situ polymerization phase inversion method was used to synthesize the pure PVDF, PVDF/MoS2, PVDF/TNT, and PVDF/MoS2-TNT nanocomposite membranes that has the ability of membrane de-fouling by their excellent photocatalytic activity. XPS analysis provide evidence about the presence of specific chemical state of titanium nanotube and molybdenum disulphide which is involved in photocatalytic degradation of pollutant molecules present in wastewater to increase the defouling properties of PMT membrane. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) show that our membranes are porous in nature and their pore size decreased with addition of MoS2-TNT filer content due to its excellent compatibility with polymer. The results illustrate that MoS2-TNT nanocomposite increases the porosity, surface roughness and hydrophilic properties of developed membrane that decreases the value of contact angle (89.32° to 36.11°) and increases the membrane flux. Due to this PVDF/MoS2-TNT membranes increase the pure water flux (68.8 ± 1.8 L/m2h-1) in comparison to pure PVDF membrane. PVDF/MoS2-TNT membranes exhibit the excellent filtration efficiency (∼97%) for textile wastewater. The mechanical characteristics, water permeation properties and flux recovery ratio of PMT membrane also increased in comparison to pure PVDF membrane due to excellent compatibility of filler content within developed membrane which make the complex porous structure. Young’s Modulus of PMT nanocomposite membrane increased from 78.71 (MPa) to 188.3 (MPa). PVDF/MoS2-TNT membrane shows the excellent photocatalytic degradation of adsorbed dye contaminants due to the presence of MoS2-TNT nanocomposite. The results have revealed that the PMT membranes has an enormous potential in commercial application of textile wastewater treatment. The recyclability of developed PMT membrane is about 94% due to the de-fouling behaviour of PMT nanocomposite membrane. AFM results show that surface roughness of PMT membrane increased from 9nm to 35nm as compared to developed pure PVDF membranes which increases the number of active sites for photocatalytic degradation of contaminant molecules. The morphological analysis shows that the size of pore (0.006μm) in PMT nanocomposite membrane was decreased. It increased the filtration efficiency due to their excellent sieving mechanism as compared to PVDF membranes. PMT nanocomposite membrane shows excellent dye and BSA rejection capability up to about 97%. It also shows the self-cleaning characteristics due to the photocatalytic activity of MoS2-TNT nanocomposite within developed PMT membrane. The results have revealed that the PMT membranes has an enormous potential in commercial application of textile wastewater treatment.
Photo Responsive Single Layer MoS2 Nanochannel Membranes for Photocatalytic Degradation of Contaminants in Water
Published in
Ecology & Evolution
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Water Treatment
Physical Sciences > Chemistry > Physical Chemistry > Environmental Chemistry > Water Treatment
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npj Clean Water
This journal publishes high-quality papers which report cutting-edge science, technology, application, policy and societal issues that contribute towards a more sustainable supply of clean water.
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