In the present study, novel biodegradable nanocomposite membranes were prepared by adding the amino functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotube (NH 2 -MWCNT) to the chitosan/polyvinyl alcohol blend polymers, and the obtained membranes were used for dehydration of isopropyl alcohol through pervaporation process. For this purpose, the membranes were prepared with chitosan/polyvinyl alcohol ratio of 4:1 on the basis of "solution casting" method and then crosslinked using glutaraldehyde, after addition of different amounts of NH 2 -MWCNT. The prepared membranes were characterized using scanning electron microscopy, contact angle, mechanical strength, degree of swelling (DS), and biodegradability. Also, the ability of the prepared membranes in dehydration of isopropyl alcohol was determined using pervaporation experiments.Results indicated that contact angle, mechanical resistance, separation factor (α), and pervaporation separation index were increased with the addition of NH 2 -MWCNT up to 10 wt% (relative to the total amount of polymer) and then decreased in the higher presence of nanotubes (15 wt%). Furthermore, the DS and permeate flux were first decreased and then increased for the same mentioned amounts of additive. In this study, optimized membrane was obtained by the addition of 10 wt% NH 2 -MWCNT. This membrane showed the maximum α (99.5), pervaporation separation index parameter (78.29 kg m −2 h −1), biodegradability, and mechanical stability as well as minimum DS.
In this study, modeling and simulation of removing a common pharmaceutical contaminant by a hollow fiber membrane contactor (HFMC) were carried out. For this purpose, a model was presented for separation of ibuprofen from wastewater in the membrane contactor. The suggested model was developed by coupling the mass and momentum equations. The partial differential equations (PDEs) and the corresponding boundary conditions of the model were solved using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques. The results showed that the predictions of this model were in close agreement with experimental data obtained from the literature. Moreover, the effects of different design and operating parameters on the removal of ibuprofen were studied. The simulation results revealed that the removal of ibuprofen was increased by increasing the membrane porosity and the length of fibers. The ibuprofen removal efficiency was also enhanced up to 93.2 and 90.2% by increasing the inner radius and the number of fibers from 110 to 145 μm and 3,000 to 15,000, respectively. As a result, this study illustrates the successful development of the CFD model for prediction of ibuprofen removal using HFMC according to which removal efficiency of more than 95% was achieved.
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