Water softening by a Polymeric Membrane Containing GO and FeOOH Nanoparticles

Heidary, Farhad; Khalaj, Rahele

doi:10.52547/masm.2.4.393

Water softening by a Polymeric Membrane Containing GO and FeOOH Nanoparticles

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Farhad Heidary

Rahele Khalaj

Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Arak University, Arak 38156-8-8349, Iran

https://doi.org/10.52547/masm.2.4.393

Abstract

Water hardness refers to the total concentration of calcium (Ca2+) and magnesium (Mg2+), which is expressed in terms of the equivalent of calcium carbonate. Excessive amounts of Ca2+ and Mg2+ in water lead to serious consequences for home and industrial use. In this research, cellulose acetate (CA) was used to prepare polymer membranes used to remove calcium and magnesium ions. Graphene oxide (GO) and FeOOH nanoparticles were also added to the polymer solution to improve membrane performance to remove total water hardness. FTIR, SEM and XRD were also used for characterization of prepared nanostructures. The advantages of this research include the use of biocompatible polymer as well as proper membrane performance at low pressures (about 3 times) which saves energy compared to high pressure membrane processes such as reverse osmosis. The results showed that the addition of FeOOH nanoparticles and graphene oxide nano plates improved the performance of the prepared membranes.

Keywords

Cellulose acetate

Membrane processes

Graphene oxide

FeOOH

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