Graphene oxide-silver nanoparticle membrane for biofouling control and water purification

The removal of bacteria and other organisms from water is an important process, not only for water purification but also biofouling control in membrane filtration. In this study, we report an antibiofouling membrane by fabricating graphene oxide-silver nanoparticles (GO-AgNPs) composite onto cellulose acetate (CA) membrane. Microscopic analysis showed that the silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) retained its nanostructure morphology on the membrane surface. The contact angle results indicated that the hydrophilicity of the membrane was enhanced by the modification of modified GO-AgNPs. Under the continuous filtration test, the relative flux drop over GO-AgNPs composite membrane was only 46%, which was much lower than that the CA membrane (88%) after 24 h filtration. Moreover, the flux of the GO-AgNPs composite membrane is higher than both the GO membrane and silver membrane in the filtration process. The presence of GO-AgNPs composite on the membrane exhibited a strong antibacterial activity, leading to an inactivation of 86% Escherichia coli after contacting with the membrane for 2 h. This study may have great potential in developing high-performance antibiofouling membrane for membrane separation processes. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.