Fabrication of fouling resistant Ti3C2Tx (MXene)/cellulose acetate nanocomposite membrane for forward osmosis application

In this study, Ti3C2Tx (MXene) was used to enhance the fouling resistance of FO flat-thin film membranes. Mixed matrix Ti3C2Tx (MXene)/cellulose acetate (CA) membranes with different (wt%) loading of MXene were fabricated by covalent crosslinking followed by phase inversion protocol. The fabricated membranes were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and contact angle measurement. The performance of the fabricated FO membranes was evaluated using seawater as draw solution (DS) and two feed solutions (FS) namely; distilled water (DW) and treated sewage effluent (TSE). The water flux, reverse solute flux and the rejection of dissolved solids were evaluated in the FO process. It was found that the cross-linked cellulose acetate membrane with 8 wt% MXene (CCAM-8%) showed higher resistance to fouling when compared with commercial thin-film composite (TFC) FO membrane, the water flux of CCAM-8% decreased by only 10.7% using TSE as FS compared to DW, where the water flux of the TFC commercial membrane decreased by 32.2% when using TSE as FS compared to DW.