Filtration performance of polyethersulfone (PES) composite membrane incorporated with organic and inorganic additives

Abstract Membrane separation technology has been extensively applied in separation processes. Improving membrane hydrophilicity plays a significant role in mitigating fouling phenomena and maintain membrane filtration performance. Fouling is a pore blockage of the membrane due to the interaction between hydrophobic molecules and membrane surface that cause membrane flux declining, shorter membranedurability, and increasing energy consumption. Incorporating inorganic particles to enhance membrane hydrophilicity is very attractive nowadays. Inorganic particles have unique characters due to their small size, excellent mechanical properties, and hydrophilic nature. This research aims to improve PES membrane filtration performances by employing nanocarbon and Fe2O3 as an inorganic additive. The membrane manufacturing process was carried out using a phaseinversionmethod., especially non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS). The resulted membranes were analyzed by filtration soy protein solution to evaluate protein permeation flux and flux recovery ratio (FRR). The result experiments showed that PES/Nanocarbon could provide the highest FRR of up to 76.46%.