Insights into the mechanically resilient, well-balanced polymeric membranes by incorporating Rhizophora mucronata derived activated carbon for sustainable wastewater decontamination.

In this study, hydrophilic activated carbon has been prepared and used to synthesize innovative activated carbon/polysulfone mixed matrix membranes (MMMs). These membranes were investigated in terms of membrane morphology, hydrophilicity, antifouling ability, and metal ions rejection. The activated carbon (AC) was prepared from a simple chemical activation method using Rhizophora mucronata propagules, which are rich in aerenchyma cells and possess a high surface area. The hydrophilicity of the MMMs is enhanced by the incorporation of activated carbon, which is confirmed by the measurement of equilibrium water contact angle, water uptake and pure water flux. The optimized concentration of 0.625 wt% activated carbon (A2) incorporated mixed matrix membrane exhibits better rejection efficiencies of 98 ± 0.5%, 99 ± 0.5%, 92 ± 2%, and 44 ± 1% for Pb+2, Cd+2, Hg+2, and F- with the permeate flux of 28.27, 31.88, 33.21, 43.82 L/m2/h, respectively. The fabricated mixed matrix membranes demonstrated an excellent flux recovery ratio and reversible fouling, when filtrating a mixed feed solution containing 200 ppm BSA, 10 ppm Pb+2 and 10 ppm Cd+2. The optimized A2 membrane showed excellent long-term stability up to 120 h without compromising in permeate flux and rejection efficiency. Finally, a numerical investigation using a usual transport model has shown that dielectric exclusion was the most probable mechanism that can physically explain experimental trends.

Iodine adsorption isotherms on Matamba fruit shell stemmed biochar for wastewater re-use strategy in rural areas owing to climate change.

Remote communities in developing countries are facing ever-increasing water scarcities, due to cumulative demand induced by the climate change and global warming impacts. For the socio-economic and health well-being of the local communities, sufficient, efficient, and affordable water supply is fundamental from local-based adsorbents. Matamba Fruit shell was obtained and pyrolyzed to obtain well-transformed biochar, which exhibited enough capacity to remove Iodine from aqueous solution. The maximum capacity of adsorption of the Matamba Fruit shell was 2.122 mmol L-1 and 2.12 mmol L-1 from conventional and Bayesian statistics correspondingly. The difference was insignificant. The surface morphology was evaluated by the Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (FESEM-EDX) which revealed porous structures with irregular openings enough to purge wastewater pollutants. The material surface area was 267.0 m2 g-1, as estimated by both approaches, making the Matamba Fruit shell an emerging potential candidate for environmental pollution control and use in bioremediation practices. The Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) revealed that surface functional groups of Matamba Fruit shell biochar have enough peak variations in intensity and position due to vibration variations of the surface. The Fruit shell has different functional groups including the hydroxyl (-OH) and the carbonyl groups (CO), CC stretches of aromatic rings, and the carboxylate (C-O-O-) groups. The biochar understudy unveiled its capability for wastewater-treatment reuse in local and urban communities of developing countries to safeguard their health and access to water-supply as the climate change reverberations are affecting the developing countries more pronounced than before.