Chemical Engineering Journal 401 (2020) 126036

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Chemical Engineering Journal

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cej

Fabrication of the polysulfone-based composite ultrafiltration membranes T

for the adsorptive removal of heavy metal ions from their contaminated
aqueous solutions
⁎
Somen Mondal, Subrata Kumar Majumder
Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, India

H I GH L IG H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• Fabrication of polymeric composite

ultrafiltration membranes and their
characterization.
• the
Lead ion (Pb 2+
removal capacities of
)
membranes were investigated.
• The metal ion removal efficiencies
followed the order
Pb2+ > Cu2+ > Cd2+ > Fe2+.
• The adsorption data were satisfied by
the Thomas model with ± 5% error.
• The parameters for the efficient
membrane filtration process were op-
timized.

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The polysulfone-based ultrafiltration membranes were synthesized by the phase inversion method with the
Polymeric composite membrane varying ratios of composites for the efficient removal of heavy metal ions from their contaminated solutions. The
Heavy metal removal membranes were characterized in terms of porosity, permeability, average pore size, contact angle, zeta po-
Ultrafiltration tential, flux regeneration, and mechanical strength. The surface morphology of the membranes were analyzed by
Adsorption mechanism
the field emission scanning electron microscope. The fluxes of the membranes were tested at the different
Regeneration
transmembrane pressures of 1.5–3.5 kg cm−2. The lead ion (Pb2+) removal efficiencies of the membranes were
investigated for the solutions of initial concentration 50 mg L-1 at a fixed pH value of 5.42. The effect of the feed
concentrations on the overall adsorption capacity was investigated by varying the initial feed concentrations
from 50 to 200 mg L−1. The highest adsorption capacity was obtained as 279.63 mg g−1 for the feed con-
centration of 200 mg L−1, and the permeate flux of 1.65 mL min−1. However, the lower feed concentration and
the lower flux were advantageous for the long time functioning of the membrane with its higher efficiency
without regeneration. The breakthrough curves for the Pb2+ adsorption processes were generated, and the
experimental results were compared with the Thomas model. A mixture of heavy metal ions contaminated
solutions was passed through the most appropriate membrane (in terms of adsorption capacity) to investigate the
effect of co-existing metal ions on the adsorption capacities of lead ions. The removal efficiencies of the
membrane for the different metal ions followed the trend like Pb2+ > Cu2+ > Cd2+ > ≈ Fe2+.

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: somen.mondal@iitg.ac.in (S. Mondal), skmaju@iitg.ac.in (S. Kumar Majumder).
URL: http://www.iitg.ernet.in/chemeng/skm/home (S. Kumar Majumder).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2020.126036
Received 14 April 2020; Received in revised form 20 May 2020; Accepted 21 June 2020
Available online 27 June 2020
1385-8947/ © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.