Investigating the role of copper and zinc oxide nanomaterials in abatement of biofouling of ultrafiltration membrane in dynamic conditions

In the present work, we demonstrate the synthesis, characterization, and biofouling study of polysulfone‐based mixed matrix membranes prepared with hydrophilic CuO and ZnO nanomaterial as antibacterial agents. Permeate flux was increased to 462.2 LMH for PSf/CuO (0.1%) and 472.5 LMH for PSf/ZnO (1.0%) from 191.2 LMH for pure PSf and BSA rejections were enhanced (from 70.91% to 95.73% for PSf/CuO (0.1%), from 70.91% to 93.47% for PSf/ZnO (1.0%). Biofilm growth over the modified membrane (was very less significant as correlated by lower pressure drop compared to pure polysulfone membrane in membrane fouling simulator (MFS) for 48 h. Adhesions of the Escherichia coli bacteria over the membrane surface were analyzed through an alcian blue test followed by a scanning electron micrograph. It was seen that the modified membrane showed a significant anti‐biofouling property with less adherence of alcian blue dye on the membrane surface and scanning electron micrographs demonstrated significantly lower biofouling. Mechanical strength of modified membrane increased up to 62.55 MPa for PSf/CuO (2%) and 55.41 MPa for PSf/ZnO (2%) as compared to 16.41 MPa of PSf membrane.