Bisphenol A Removal Using Visible Light Driven Cu<sub>2</sub>O/PVDF Photocatalytic Dual Layer Hollow Fiber Membrane
Siti Hawa Mohamed Noor,
Mohd Hafiz Dzarfan Othman,
Watsa Khongnakorn,
Oulavanh Sinsamphanh,
Huda Abdullah,
Mohd Hafiz Puteh,
Tonni Agustiono Kurniawan,
Hazirah Syahirah Zakria,
Tijjani El-badawy,
Ahmad Fauzi Ismail,
Mukhlis A. Rahman,
Juhana Jaafar
Affiliations
Siti Hawa Mohamed Noor
Advanced Membrane Technology Research Centre (AMTEC), School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai 81310, Johor, Malaysia
Mohd Hafiz Dzarfan Othman
Advanced Membrane Technology Research Centre (AMTEC), School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai 81310, Johor, Malaysia
Watsa Khongnakorn
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla 90110, Thailand
Oulavanh Sinsamphanh
Faculty of Environmental Science, Dongdok Campus, National University of Laos, Xaythany District, Vientiane 01080, Laos
Huda Abdullah
Department of Electrical, Electronic & Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering & Built Environment, The National University of Malaysia, Bangi 43600, Selangor, Malaysia
Mohd Hafiz Puteh
Advanced Membrane Technology Research Centre (AMTEC), School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai 81310, Johor, Malaysia
Tonni Agustiono Kurniawan
College of the Environment and Ecology, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China
Hazirah Syahirah Zakria
Advanced Membrane Technology Research Centre (AMTEC), School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai 81310, Johor, Malaysia
Tijjani El-badawy
Advanced Membrane Technology Research Centre (AMTEC), School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai 81310, Johor, Malaysia
Ahmad Fauzi Ismail
Advanced Membrane Technology Research Centre (AMTEC), School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai 81310, Johor, Malaysia
Mukhlis A. Rahman
Advanced Membrane Technology Research Centre (AMTEC), School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai 81310, Johor, Malaysia
Juhana Jaafar
Advanced Membrane Technology Research Centre (AMTEC), School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai 81310, Johor, Malaysia
Bisphenol A (BPA) is amongst the endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) that cause illness to humans and in this work was removed using copper (I) oxide (Cu2O) visible light photocatalyst which has a narrow bandgap of 2.2 eV. This was done by embedding Cu2O into polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes to generate a Cu2O/PVDF dual layer hollow fiber (DLHF) membrane using a co-extrusion technique. The initial ratio of 0.25 Cu2O/PVDF was used to study variation of the outer dope extrusion flowrate for 3 mL/min, 6 mL/min and 9 mL/min. Subsequently, the best flowrate was used to vary Cu2O/PVDF for 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75 with fixed outer dope extrusion flowrate. Under visible light irradiation, 10 mg/L of BPA was used to assess the membranes performance. The results show that the outer and inner layers of the membrane have finger-like structures, whereas the intermediate section of the membrane has a sponge-like structure. With high porosity up to 63.13%, the membrane is hydrophilic and exhibited high flux up to 13,891 L/m2h. The optimum photocatalytic membrane configuration is 0.50 Cu2O/PVDF DLHF membrane with 6 mL/min outer dope flowrate, which was able to remove 75% of 10 ppm BPA under visible light irradiation without copper leaching into the water sample.
