Investigating the Effect of Polyamidoamine Generation 2 (PAMAM-G2) Polymeric Nanostructures Dendrimer on the Performance of Polycarbonate Thin Film Nanocomposite Membranes for Water Treatment

Thin film nanocomposite membranes (TFN) were fabricated using poly(amidoamine) dendrimer (PAMAM) contains a radially symmetrical and hyperbranched structure comprising of a tremendous entirety of amine bunches (-NH2) on dendrimer branches that cause a hydrophilic structure. It wouldn't be possible for it to have aggressive targets for chemical foulant through the use of the dip-coating method that polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/PAMAM-G2 solution was applied to polycarbonate (PC) support membranes. The Fourier transform infrared and thermal gravimetric analysis confirmed the synthesis PAMAM dendritic structure. At vacuum trans-membrane pressures (TMP) of 0.4 and 0.6 bar, all fabricated membranes were utilized to remove humic acid (HA) in a submerged membrane system. PVA/PAMAM-G2 top active layer formed on the PC support membrane was verified by images obtained using field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) equipment. FESEM images showed that a PVA-PAMAM.G2 top layer with a thickness of 201.85 nm was developed on the PC support layer. TFN membranes' hydrophilicity and surface roughness increased and decreased respectively as a result of the incorporation of PAMAM-G2. The TFN with 0.1 wt.% of PAMAM-G2 nanostructures demonstrated increased permeation flux at lower vacuum TMP, according to the results of HA filtration. However, the permeation flux significantly decreased at higher vacuum TMP conditions. The rejection rate for TFC membranes was about 97.9% while for TFN membranes in the presence of PAMAM-G2 polymeric nanostructure it reached to 98.5%.