title: Nanocarbon-based membrane filtration integrated with electric field driving for effective membrane fouling mitigation.
abstract: Membrane filtration provides an effective solution for removing pollutants from water but is limited by serious membrane fouling. In this work, an effective approach was used to mitigate membrane fouling by integrating membrane filtration with electropolarization using an electroconductive nanocarbon-based membrane. The electropolarized membrane (EM) by alternating square-wave potentials between +1.0 V and -1.0 V with a pulse width of 60 s exhibited a permeate flux 8.1 times as high as that without electropolarization for filtering feed water containing bacteria, which confirms the ability of the EM to achieve biofouling mitigation. Moreover, the permeate flux of EM was 1.5 times as high as that without electropolarization when filtrating natural organic matter (NOM) from water, and demonstrated good performance in organic fouling mitigation with EM. Furthermore, the EM was also effective for complex fouling mitigation in filtering water containing coexisting bacteria and NOM, and presented an increased flux rate 1.9 times as high as that without electropolarization. The superior fouling mitigation performance of EM was attributed to the synergistic effects of electrostatic repulsion, electrochemical oxidation and electrokinetic behaviors. This work opens an effective avenue for membrane fouling mitigation of water-treatment membrane filtration systems.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education, China), School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China.
authors.forename: Xinfei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education, China), School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China.
authors.forename: Huimin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education, China), School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China. Electronic address: quanxie@dlut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Xie
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Quan
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education, China), School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China.
authors.forename: Yanming
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education, China), School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China.
authors.forename: Shuo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D057219:Biofouling / Q000517:prevention & control*; D002516:Ceramics; D055664:Electrochemical Techniques / Q000379:methods; D004926:Escherichia coli; D005374:Filtration / Q000191:economics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon / Q000737:chemistry; D018508:Water Purification / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon
keywords: Electropolarization; Fouling mitigation; Membrane filtration; Nanocarbon-based membrane