SELF CLEANING MEMBRANE FOR WATER TREATMENT

INTRODUCTION
Water pollution is one of the greatest challenges around the world. The growing scarcity of
adequate quality water resources is a major global concern.

While approximately 1.2 billion people are around the globe live in areas of physical
scarcity, where 1.6 billion people are challenged by the lack of essential infrastructure to
transport water from sources.

At the year 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population could be exposed to be in water
stress conditions, and by 2030, approximately 3.9 billion people will be living in the water-
scarce 4 countries or regions.

Water is most essential in all sectors including potable water production, agriculture,
mining and industry, and energy, which are likely to be competing for increasingly limited
freshwater resources.

In addition to that, polluted water threatens the health and viability of all living organisms.
Whereas toxic dyes and heavy metal ions in wastewater from industrial activities can result
in serious damage to living organisms and the environment.

Organic contaminants resulted from the industries including food production, textiles,
paper, munitions production, fossil fuel processing, hospital operations, and specialty
chemicals synthesis, while other industries, such as biomedicine, jewelry, aerospace,
mining, and agriculture, are the source of inorganic ion pollution.

These issues have driven utilities and industries towards the exploitation of alternative and
non-conventional source, leading to intentional or unintentional indirect or direct non-
potable or potable reuse.

For instance, the Orange County Water District (OCWD) in California practices potable
water reuse by recharging groundwater using municipal wastewater effluent is treated via
MF, RO, and advanced oxidation processes. This treatment system, known as the
Groundwater Replenishment System (GWRS), contributes to drinking water supplies for
more than 2 million people.
When compared to the conventional water treatments, membrane processes offer effective
technologies that can be applied to produce potable water from both conventional the
surface or groundwater and impaired sources.

Self-cleaning membranes is a critically needed solution to solve the problem of fouling,

which is unwanted buildup of organic and inorganic deposits on a membrane’s surface that
reduces the membrane’s ability to filter impurities.

Water treatment and purification membranes that can easily clean themselves when fouled
could make pressure-driven membrane filtration systems used to treat and desalinate
water more energy-efficient.

Membrane technology has been accepted as an effective separation process for water
treatment due to reliability and efficiency of contaminant rejection, along with the
flexibility provided through a wide range of membrane materials (ceramic: silica, alumina,
titanium) ( polymeric: polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF), polyamide (PA), polyether
sulfone (PES), polysulfone (PSF), etc. and metallic: palladium, silver , etc.) and pore sizes
(microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), Nano filtration (NF), and reverse osmosis(RO)) .

For an instance, the pressure-driven membrane processes such as RO, NF, UF, and MF are
prone to fouling during long-term operation. Fouling results in higher operation and
maintenance costs due to limited recoveries, feed water loss and permeate quality
deterioration, reduced service time, and premature membrane replacement.

The self-cleaning methods are therefore necessary to solve the fouling problem without
stopping the water filtration process.

One such method is coupling membrane filtration with photocatalysis. The photocatalytic
properties of semiconductor photocatalysts such as TiO2 lead to the photo-induced partial
or total decomposition of pollutants present on the surface of the membrane

While photo-induced ultra-hydrophilicity leads to elimination of the remaining

hydrophobic contaminants through a simple water rinsing operation. Photocatalysis and
induced hydrophilicity can occur on the same surface simultaneously to give a “self-
cleaning” membrane which lead to cleaning procedure.
Other such method in self cleaning membrane is polymer membrane surfaces have been
equipped with a digestive enzyme trypsin. The digestive enzyme trypsin was immobilized
on the membrane surface to enable the active degradation of a protein fouling layer at an
optimum pH range of 7.5–8.5.

The method performed the test aimed for proving that the self-cleaning effect is originated
by the enzyme activity, and not by back-washing steps or surface modification effects.

However, when this membrane is used in an application, the system would be much easier
since realistic system provide much less concentrated protein solutions (less fouling) and
the membrane would not have to be removed from the system for self-cleaning.

Typically, membrane modules are constructed in a way that regular back-washing steps
are performed with the same water that is cleaned at that moment. Then, chemical cleaning
is necessary by immersing the entire module for several hours into an extra tank with
hypochlorite solution or acidic media.

This step could be replaced by immersing the module into a buffer solution as
demonstrated by the method which would be beneficial because no toxic or aggressive
chemicals would be necessary, the membrane material would not be degraded by the
oxidative cleaning, and the disposal of waste that is required after chemical cleaning can be
avoided.

In future experiments we aim to immobilize different enzymes for different pH ranges and
extend the storage period.

Other such aspect is Industrial wastewater has become a global issue due to its high
concentration of pollutants, especially refractory organic compounds.

Membrane technology has attracted considerable attention in industrial wastewater

purification over the past decades owing to its high flexibility regarding water quality and
low investment costs.

However, inherent membrane fouling caused by concentration polarization and pore

blocking leads to low plant reliability and limits wide industrial application in wastewater
treatment.
Controlling and mitigating membrane fouling has become the most critical problem in the
field of membrane technology for water and wastewater treatment. To tackle this
challenging issue, many strategies have been implemented, such as pretreating feed water,
development of antifouling membranes, new design of membrane modules, optimizing
operating conditions, and integrating membrane processes with other techniques.

Depending on pore size, charge of retained particle or molecule, separation mechanism,

morphology, geometry, and pressure exerted, pressure driven membrane filtration process
is classified as micro-filtration (MF), ultra-filtration (UF), nano-filtration (NF) and Reverse
Osmosis (RO) .

Nanocomposite membranes have emerged as promising water purification technologies to

overcome the limitations associated with conventional polymeric membranes by offering
enhanced hydrophilicity, thermal and mechanical stability, permeability, targeted
degradation, solute rejection, and magnetic, antimicrobial, and antifouling properties.

Polymeric membranes remain a ubiquitous choice due to low relative cost, pore size range,
configuration flexibility, and scalability. However, despite decades of research and
development, polymeric membranes also remain plagued by long-standing operational
issues such as fouling and challenging trade-offs between novel functionality and cost.

As a result, while novel polymer chemistries and membrane fabrication techniques have
been proposed in literature, few have been commercialized. Rather than rely entirely on
novel polymer chemistries, the growth of the nanomaterials field has opened alternate,
transformative avenues for membrane development, where a nanomaterial, when
combined with a robust polymer platform, can result in a nanocomposite membrane with
new or improved properties.
MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY
Self -cleaning membrane in water treatment such as in industrial wastewater treatment,
drinking water treatment, desalination etc.
In this some technologies are
 An electro catalytic membrane reactor for self -cleaning of industrial waste water

 Photo catalytic Nano filtration membranes with self-cleaning Property for

wastewater treatment
 Biocatalytic polymer self- cleaning membrane
 Self-cleaning ultrafiltration 5 membrane functionalized with iron 6 oxy chloride
(FeOCl) Nano catalysts.
 Automatic self -cleaning filters for drinking water treatment

An electro catalytic membrane reactor (ECMR) for self -cleaning of industrial waste water

 As per diagram the materials used are tubular carbon membrane as the conductive
membrane substrate because of its significant mechanical strength, good chemical
stability, and specific conductivity.
 Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is widely used as a catalytic layer of electrodes in treating
various industrial wastewaters as it is excellent in oxidation and reduction,
chemically stable, nontoxic, and cheap. Here TiO2 as the electro catalyst and
hydrophilic agent was coated onto the membrane by a sol–gel approach to prepare a
TiO2/carbon membrane to enhance electron transfer and improve membrane
permeability.
 METHODOLOGY
 To prevent membrane fouling, TiO2/carbon membrane acts both as a filter and an
anode during electrolysis. In ECMR operation, once the membrane anode is
electrified, excitation of TiO2 leads to holes in the valence band and electrons in the
conduction band at the TiO2 surface.
 The obtained electrons and holes not only electrochemically decompose H2O into
O2 and H2 which induce gas and liquid micro flows to reduce concentration
polarization and avoid membrane fouling
 But can also react with the adsorbed H2O and O2 at the TiO2 surface to generate
reactive intermediates such as COH, O2 , HO2C, and H2O2.
 This can indirectly decompose the organic foulants on the membrane surface or in
the pores into CO2 and H2O or biodegradable products, and thus a self-cleaning
function of the electrocatalytic membranes is achieved. Simultaneously, CO2
bubbles also induce microflows to strengthen the antifouling effect.
 The permeate flux of the electrocatalytic membrane was 15.2 and 1.85 times higher
than those of the original carbon membrane and TiO2/carbon membrane,
respectively, after 200 min of operation.
 The electricity consumption for this membrane reactor was 0.166 kW·h per ton of
water, which indicates that the electrocatalytic membrane has a very strong
antifouling ability.
 Firstly, the gas and liquid microflows arising in the ECMR would hinder foulant
adsorption and deposition on the membrane surface and reduce the concentration
polarization.
 Secondly, if the foulants are adsorbed and deposited on the membrane surface or in
the pores to cause concentration polarization and block the pores, the higher electro
catalytic activity of the electro catalytic membrane would decompose the foulants
into CO2 and H2O or small biodegradable products and thus result in a strong self-
cleaning function.
 Besides oily water, the ECMR also exhibited good performance and antifouling
ability for treatment of other industrial wastewaters, such as phenol wastewater and
dye wastewater (Figure S6 and S7 in the Supporting Information), which is of broad
 interest. In conclusion, an antifouling electrocatalytic membrane reactor with self-
cleaning function was successfully designed and manufactured for industrial
wastewater treatment.
 It exhibited excellent performance in the treatment of oily water compared with
conventional membrane filtration. Such an ECMR would have wide potential
applications in industrial wastewater purification.

Photo catalytic Nano filtration membranes with self-cleaning Property for wastewater
treatment

MATERIALS USED
polydopamine (PDA)/polyethyleneimine (PEI) intermediate layer is fabricated on an
ultrafiltration membrane via a co-deposition method followed by mineralization of a
photo catalytic layer consisting of β-FeOOH nanorods.
The PDA–PEI layer acts both as a nano filtration selective layer and an
intermediate layer for anchoring the β-FeOOH nanorods via strong coordination
complexes between Fe3+ and catechol groups. In visible light, the β-FeOOH layer
exhibits efficient photocatalytic activity for degrading dyes through the photo-
Fenton reaction in the presence of hydrogen peroxide, endowing the NFM
concurrently with effective nanofiltration performance and self-cleaning capability.
Moreover, the mineralized NFMs exhibit satisfactory stability under simultaneous
filtration and photocatalysis processing, showing great potential in advanced
wastewater treatment.
 METHODOLOGY

It is well known that dopamine can be oxidized into polydopamine (PDA) in alkaline
solutions, which can adherent on a wide variety of substrates and strong chelate with metal
ions.Various polymeric membranes with enhanced curling resistance and surface
wettability via mussel inspired PDA/polyethyleneimine (PEI) intermediate layers.
Compared with a simple PDA layer, the PDA/PEI intermediate layer was thinner,
smoother, and more stable, and could also work as a defectfree selective nanofiltration
layer for water purification. This robust modification derived from the abundant amino
groups on PEI main chains significantly accelerated the deposition process via the Michael
addition or Schiff-base reaction.

Drawing inspiration from this co-deposition methodology, herein we propose a novel

mussel inspired strategy to fabricate hierarchical photo catalytic NFMs with self-cleaning
property for advanced wastewater treatment.

PDA–PEI nanofiltration layer is first co-deposited and crosslinked with an ultrafiltration

substrate, then a β-FeOOH catalyst layer is generated on the surface through a
mineralization process.

The mineralized NFM shows satisfactory nanofiltration performance with tunable range
of molecular weight cutoff (MWCO) and high rejection for various dyes with reasonable
water flux. Importantly, the β-FeOOH nanorods bestow the prepared NFMs with high
photocatalytic efficiency for dye degradation under visible light irradiation in the presence
of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), thus endowing self-cleaning characteristics.

Moreover, the mineralized NFMs show good stability and reusability as the bioglue effect
of the PDA–PEI layer immobilizes the β-FeOOH nanorods via strong coordination
complexes between Fe3+ and catechol groups. In combination with their facile preparation,
high nanofiltration, and efficient selfcleaning performance, this indicates that the prepared
membranes represent a promising strategy in advanced wastewater purification and
reclamation.