Blended cellulose nitrate/cellulose acetate membranes for enhanced water treatment performance in ultrafiltration.
Journal:
Carbohydrate polymers
Published Date:
Sep 1, 2025
Abstract
The utilization of cellulose derivatives offers an eco-friendly alternative to petroleum-based polymers, necessitating research into effective water purification membranes. This study focuses on the development and investigation of membranes from nitrocellulose (CN) by blending it with cellulose acetate (CA) and modifying it with additives such as polysulfone (PSU), polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP K-30), and a Zn-based metal-organic framework (ZnBIM) for efficient ultrafiltration separation of proteins. The influence of the CN/CA blend ratio and casting solution concentration on the membrane properties was studied. The CN/CA (75:25) membrane prepared from a 20 wt% solution exhibited superior performance in ultrafiltration: 295 L mhatm water flux, 90.5 % rejection of bovine serum albumin (BSA), and a 50.3 % flux recovery ratio (FRR). The modification of this membrane with additives allowed for strategically subtle performance improvements: the hydrophobic PSU significantly increased water flux (382 L mhatm), hydrophilic ZnBIM improved retention (96.8 %), and PVP K-30 substantially enhanced antifouling properties (84.4 %). The casting solutions and membranes were characterized using various spectroscopic and microscopic methods, along with contact angle measurements, viscosity, and particle size distribution analysis. A machine-learning approach, specifically a multi-objective genetic algorithm using the LightGBM regression model, successfully identified membrane compositions with increased BSA fluxes, high R and FRR.
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