Muhamad Fikri Shohur

Performance Studies of Polysulfone-Based Membrane: Effect of Silica Morphology

In the present work, polysulfone (PSf) ultrafiltration membranes were prepared by solution casting. The effects of rice husk silica (RHS) on the surface properties of the PSf/Polyethylene glycol (PEG) membrane were observed and investigated. Characterizations were conducted to determine the membrane cross-section area and RHS distribution. The structure of RHS and morphology of membrane were analyzed by using X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). XRD pattern showed that the amorphous silica was produced from rice husk ash (RHA). The analysis of SEM indicates that the addition of RHS obviously changed the microstructure of the membrane especially at top layer and sub layer.

The Effect of Amorphous Rice Husk Silica to the Polysulfone Membrane Separation Process

This study investigates the effect of additive rice husk silica and Polyethylene glycol (PEG) on the performance of polysulfone (PSf) membrane. The membrane was prepared by phase inversion method using PSf, N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) and rice husk silica was added as an additive. The performance of the membrane was analyzed by using distilled water for permeation test and humic acid for the rejection test. The result showed that the hydrophilic of PSf/PEG membrane has significantly improved the permeation and rejection performance with addition of rice husk silica. The results showed that with addition of 3% rice husk silica give the highest rejection flux at 196.63 L/m2hr with the rejection value 98%.

The effect of crystalline rice husk silica on Polysulfone membrane for wastewater treatment

This study investigates the effect of additive rice husk silica and Polyethylene glycol(PEG) at different concentration on of Polysulfone (Psf) ultrafiltration (UF) membranes. The polymer membranes were prepared by a phase inversion method using Polysulfone (PSf) , N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) as a solvent and distilled water as non-solvent. The performances of the membranes were measured in term of pure water flux by using distilled water and solute rejection at different wastewater concentration at 50%, 75% and 87.5%. The results demonstrated that the addition 2% and 3% rice husk silica give the good rejection for membranes but the best rejection was at membranes contains 3% rice husk silica where successfully do rejection of 80.5%. As a conclusion,the range between 2%-3% of rice husk silica gives the ideal composition based on the result of flux permeation and rejection.

Antibacterial Polysulfone Membranes: The Effect of Eugenol and Zinc Oxide as Additives

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of eugenol and zinc oxide on antibacterial properties of polysulfone membrane. Polysulfone membranes were prepared by a simple phase inversion technique with N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) as solvent and polyethylene glycol as pore forming agent with zinc oxide and eugenol as additives. Membrane structure were characterized using scanning electron microscope (SEM) to observe the effect of both additives towards the formation of dense top layer and porous bottom layer of membrane. Disc diffusion test was conducted to evaluate the antibacterial performance against Escherichia coli (E.coli). SEM result showed the formation of thin top and bottom layers with more porous structure for hydrophilic zinc oxide particle, while dense top and bottom layers with slightly smaller porous network for eugenol addition. However, accumulations of particles were found for membrane with zinc oxide at higher concentration. The synergistic effect of combination zinc oxide and eugenol on antibacterial activity against E coli was found in this study. Besides that, the inhibition ring of membrane was improved 200% when both zinc oxide and eugenol were added in polysulfone membrane, Based on the findings, we can conclude that membrane with a combination of zinc oxide and eugenol has a huge potential membrane for bacterial removal.

Effect of operating condition on polysulfone/PEG/silica membrane fouling in wastewater separation

Adjustment of operation and membrane materials are key points to minimize the membrane fouling. Therefore, this study explored the effect of operating condition such as pH, wastewater, ionic strength, and membrane pressure on polysulfone/ silica. The study conducted using cross flow ultrafiltration membrane test rig. Optimization was done via Taguchi method (L9) using the larger the better signalto- noise (S/N) ratio. The best result were obtained at pH: 7, dilution of wastewater concentration at 75%, ionic strength: 0%, transmembrane pressure: 4 bar. Ionic strength was negligible in this study due to low signal ratio. The highest contribution in this study was found from membrane pressure as compared to other factors. Level of pH showed the lowest effect on membrane fouling.

The Effect of Sodium Chloride (NaCl) Coagulant Medium of Polysulfone Ultrafiltration Membrane

This study investigates the effect of Sodium Chloride (NaCl) coagulant medium with different concentration to produce Polysulfone (PSf) ultrafiltration (UF) asymmetric membrane. The polymer membrane prepared by a phase inversion method using Polysulfone (PSf) as a base polymer, Polyethylene glycol (PEG) 400MW as copolymer additive, N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) as solvent and NaCl coagulant medium with different concentration as nonsolvent. In this work, the concentration of immersion medium for membrane phase immersion process prepared based on different coagulation concentration medium NaCl was modified repeatedly in the range of 1-5%. These membrane performance were analyzed via pure water permeation and solute rejection of humic acid. Based on these results, the membrane immersed in 4% concentration of NaCl coagulant medium showed the highest pure water permeation (235.69 l.m-2. h-1) and solute rejection of humic acid which is up to 98%.