Sustainable Jatropha Oil-Based Membrane with Graphene Oxide for Potential Application in Cu(II) Ion Removal from Aqueous Solution

Abstract

More recent attention has been focused on the utilization of Jatropha curcas in the field of water treatment. The potential of Jatropha oil in the synthesis of membrane for water filtration had been explored, its performance compared to the addition of graphene oxide (GO) in the polymer matrix. Jatropha oil was modified in a two-step method to produce Jatropha oil-based polyol (JOL) and was blended with hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) to produce Jatropha polyurethane membrane (JPU). JPU was synthesized in different conditions to obtain the optimized membrane and was blended with different GO loading to form Jatropha/graphene oxide composite membrane (JPU/GO) for performance improvement. The synthesized pristine JPU and JPU/GO were evaluated and the materials were analyzed using fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), contact angle, water flux, and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). Results showed that the ratio of HDI to JOL for optimized JPU was obtained at 5:5 (v/v) with the cross-linking temperature at 90 °C and curing temperature at 150 °C. As GO was added into JPU, several changes were observed. The glass transition temperature (Tg) and onset temperature (To) increased from 58 °C to 69 °C and from 170 °C to 202 °C, respectively. The contact angle, however, decreased from 88.8° to 52.1° while the water flux improved from 223.33 L/m2·h to 523.33 L/m2·h, and the pore distribution in JPU/GO became more orderly. Filtration of copper ions using the synthesized membrane was performed to give rejection percentages between 33.51% and 71.60%. The results indicated that GO had a significant impact on JPU. Taken together, these results have suggested that JPU/GO has the potential for use in water filtration.

Adopting Sustainable Jatropha Oil Bio-Based Polymer Membranes as Alternatives for Environmental Remediation

“…A filtration experiment was conducted using a customized crossflow filtration system (Figure 1), and the details can be found in our previous work [40]. The concentration of Cu(II) ions was analyzed using atomic adsorption spectroscopy (AAS) and further used in Equation (1) to calculate the observed Cu(II) ions removal [41,42]:…”

“…All chemicals were used as received, without further purification. The experimental details for the preparation of JPU/GO 0.50 wt% for filtration can be found in our previous work [40].…”

“…Our recent works synthesized Jatropha polyurethane membrane (JPU) mixed with 0.50 wt% graphene oxide (JPU/GO 0.50 wt%) and successfully removed Cu(II) ions from an aqueous solution. The JPU/GO 0.50 wt% membrane exhibits a dense defect-free surface morphology that contains active oxygenated functional groups due to the presence of graphene oxide (GO) [40].…”

Valorization of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch (OPEFB) as Membrane Polymer via Non-solvent Induced Phase Separation Method (NIPS) for Removal of Aqueous Contaminants

“…The membrane was then oven-dried at 40 •C for 24 h, and then weighed to obtain the drybasis mass. The membrane water content (%) and porosity (%) were determined using following the equation below [22], [23]:…”

Surface-modified ultrafiltration and nanofiltration membranes for the selective removal of heavy metals and inorganic groundwater contaminants: a review

“…Here, the Cu 2+ ions formed a surface complex with the amine groups by sharing a vacant electron pair from the nitrogen atoms, subsequently leading to the enhanced removal of copper. A novel approach of using Jatropha oil-based polyol (JOL) blended with hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) was studied by Harun et al 214 The fabricated JPU membrane was further blended with GO to form Jatropha/GO composite membrane (JPU/GO), which could reject Cu 2+ up to 71.60% by complex formation. A zeolitic imidazolate framework-67-carboxylated GO (ZIF-67/cGO) was synthesized and incorporated in PSf, resulting in a high flux and 66.4 ± 3.2 mg g −1 for Cu 2+ adsorption, which is illustrated in Fig.…”