Applications of graphene oxide blended poly(vinylidene fluoride) membranes for the treatment of organic matters and its membrane fouling investigation

In this work, poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membranes of different graphite oxide (GO) dosage were prepared using phase inversion method. The results indicated that the hydrophilicity, rejection rate, anti-pollution capacities and pure water flux of membranes were efficiently enhanced with the introduction of GO, and the porosity of membrane was increased about 14.3%, which was attributed to the charge repulsion reaction between the negatively charged of dissolved organic matter and negative functional groups of GO. The raw water from Qinghe sweage treatment plant in Beijing had been utilized to evaluate the performance of PVDF-GO membranes, and permeate water was analyzed by the total organic carbon (TOC), UV-vis scanning spectrophotometer and three-dimensional fluorescence excitation-emission matrices (3D-EEM). Moreover, the membrane fouling mechanism was discussed and the membrane fouling was likely to be the result of the pore blocking by pollutants. In addition, the morphology properties of PVDF-GO membrane were investigated, and it was found when GO dosage was as high as 1.0 wt%, the anti-fouling of PVDF-GO membranes performed best. Therefore, the introduction of GO into the PVDF membranes was very effective to improve the performances of membranes varying adverse water conditions and it was also a good choice to the industrial applications.