Preparation of chitosan/cellulose acetate composite nanofiltration membrane for wastewater treatment

A chitosan/cellulose acetate (CA) composite membrane is prepared in this study. The effect of varying CA concentration on membrane morphology and performance is studied by using scanning electron microscopy and the composite membrane is characterized by differential scanning calorimetry and thermal gravimetric analysis. Molecular weight cut-off of the composite membrane is found to be 830 Da, which is in the range of nanofiltration. The rejection for copper from a common effluent treatment plant wastewater is observed to be 81.03% at 506.5 kPa applied pressure. The mean pore size is calculated to be 0.78 nm.