Multifunctional membrane for water purification

• Main Author: Chew, Julian Ignatius Jun Wei
• Other Authors: Sun Delai, Darren
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Engineering::Environmental engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/136643
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Currently, water shortage is one of the problems that world is facing as readily accessible fresh water is less than 1% of the total water found on Earth. As climate change occurs, global population increasing with higher standard of living, the water shortages situation will worsen. People in many countries do not gave a clean source of water to drink from and this causes water borne diseases to occur due to the presence of pathogens. Conventional disinfection processes have disadvantages such as formation of by-product, adverse health effect if exposed to human biological growth after treatment. Therefore, membrane technology can be a potential way to overcome these disadvantages, but fouling is the major drawback of membrane technology. Hence, this study proposes the fabrication of a Polysulfone nanofiber membrane with copper oxide nanostructure due to its super hydrophilic surface which can reduce the frequency of fouling. The nanofiber membrane will be fabricated through electrospinning due its simplicity and cost effectiveness while the nanofiber membrane is ideal for the nanostructure due to its high specific surface area. The growth of the copper oxide nanostructure will be achieved through a hydrothermal process and the membrane characterization will be carried out to determine the optimal nanofiber membrane.