Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes/Polyacrylonitrile Composite as Novel Semi-Permeable Filter for Water Treatment Process

A novel and simple method is introduced for rapid and highly efficient water treatment using multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)/polyacrylonitrile (PAN) composite as a flexible, highly efficient, reusable and semipermeable filter. For this purpose, MWCNTs were directly synthesized and straightforwardly purified by chemical vapor deposition process, followed by directing the MWCNTs towards an ultrasonic bath, in which PAN polymer was simultaneously suspended inside a solid porous silica support in water, whose temperature was set to similar to 70 degrees C. Fabrication process of CNT-based filter was finally completed by hot isostatic pressing process. In this study, full factorial design was used to study the effects and also the interactions between important factors such as pressure, temperature and electrochemical conductance. Simplex method was used to optimize the proposed factors. The influence of these factors was also modeled using multiple linear regression method. In accordance with the analytical figures of merit, the efficiency of fabricated filter was similar to 97%. The volumetric flux of water treatment process was also evaluated to 6.35 L min(-1). The results reveal that, the CNT-based filter is suitable for rapid treatment of different forms of industrial, sea, drinking and well water samples.