Preparation of antibiofouling nanocomposite PVDF/Ag-SiO2 membrane and long-term performance evaluation in the MBR system fed by real pharmaceutical wastewater

In this work, the Ag-SiO2 nanoparticles were successfully synthesized and their antibacterial property was confirmed using the plate colony counting method. The SiO2 and Ag-SiO2 nanoparticles were used to prepare the PVDF/SiO2 and PVDF/Ag-SiO2 nanocomposite membranes, respectively. Pure water flux, contact angle and mechanical strength measurement analyses were conducted to characterize and compare the performance of the neat and nanocomposite membranes. Moreover, in order to investigate the structure of the prepared membranes scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to obtain surface and cross-section images. A long-term filtration test was carried out in a bench scale submerged membrane bioreactor (MBR) system, fed by real pharmaceutical wastewater, to evaluate the antibiofouling performance of the prepared neat and nanocomposite membranes. In comparison to the neat PVDF, the pure water flux of the nanocomposite PVDF membrane (PVDF/Ag-SiO2; 0.6 wt %) increased about 60% and the water contact angle decreased from about 99 degrees to 89 degrees. The obtained results showed that the nanocomposite PVDF/Ag-SiO2 membrane exhibits considerable antibiofouling properties such that the accumulated dried biofilm as well as the extra cellular polymeric substances (EPSs) collected from the cake layer decreased considerably for the nanocomposite membrane. Moreover, the flux recovery ratio increased from 58% for the neat PVDF membrane to 76% for the nanocomposite PVDF/Ag-SiO2 membrane. The excitation and emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence spectroscopy analysis revealed that the accumulated protein on the surface of nanocomposite membranes decreased considerably in a way that the peak corresponding to tryptophan protein-like substances diminished completely, indicating the high antibiofouling potential of nanocomposite membranes. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonium removal efficiencies of the neat and nanocomposite membranes were higher than 90% and 95%, respectively, indicating negligible impact of the membrane modification on the effluents' quality.