Ultrathin Graphene Oxide-Based Nanocomposite Membranes for Water Purification
Faheeda Soomro,
Fida Hussain Memon,
Muhammad Ali Khan,
Muzaffar Iqbal,
Aliya Ibrar,
Ayaz Ali Memon,
Jong Hwan Lim,
Kyung Hyon Choi,
Khalid Hussain Thebo
Affiliations
Faheeda Soomro
Department of Human and Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Education, Linguists and Sciences, The Begum Nusrat Bhutto Women University, Rohri Bypass, Sukkur 65200, Pakistan
Fida Hussain Memon
Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Jeju National University, Jeju 63243, Republic of Korea
Muhammad Ali Khan
Institute of Chemical Sciences, Bahauddin Zakriya University, Multan 60800, Pakistan
Muzaffar Iqbal
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences, The University of Haripur KPK, Haripur 22620, Pakistan
Aliya Ibrar
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences, The University of Haripur KPK, Haripur 22620, Pakistan
Ayaz Ali Memon
National Centre of Excellence in Analytical Chemistry, University of Sindh, Jamshoro 76080, Pakistan
Jong Hwan Lim
Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Jeju National University, Jeju 63243, Republic of Korea
Kyung Hyon Choi
Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Jeju National University, Jeju 63243, Republic of Korea
Khalid Hussain Thebo
Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shenyang 110016, China
Two-dimensional graphene oxide (GO)-based lamellar membranes have been widely developed for desalination, water purification, gas separation, and pervaporation. However, membranes with a well-organized multilayer structure and controlled pore size remain a challenge. Herein, an easy and efficient method is used to fabricate MoO2@GO and WO3@GO nanocomposite membranes with controlled structure and interlayer spacing. Such membranes show good separation for salt and heavy metal ions due to the intensive stacking interaction and electrostatic attraction. The as-prepared composite membranes showed high rejection rates (˃70%) toward small metal ions such as sodium (Na+) and magnesium (Mg2+) ions. In addition, both membranes also showed high rejection rates ˃99% for nickel (Ni2+) and lead (Pb2+) ions with good water permeability of 275 ± 10 L m−2 h−1 bar−1. We believe that our fabricated membranes will have a bright future in next generation desalination and water purification membranes.