Preparation and characterization of hydrophilic surface modifier macromolecule modified poly (ether sulfone) photocatalytic membrane for phenol removal

A modified poly (ether sulfone) (PES) by hydrophilic surface modifying macromolecules (LSMM) incorporated with oxygenated graphitic carbon nitride (OGCN) photocatalyst (PES/OGCN-LSMM) was successfully prepared as a hybrid photocatalytic membrane. The effect of solvent evaporation time during membrane fabrication was studied by focusing on the positioning of LSMM in order to provide the desirable properties of the PES/OGCN-LSMM hybrid membrane for phenol removal performance by photocatalytic and separation. The PES/OGCN-LSMM membranes exhibited a decreased value of contact angle as the solvent evaporation time increased. The SEM images revealed a dense top layer supported by finger-like structures underneath, which was formed for the membranes at 0–4 min solvent evaporation time, while a sponge-like microvoid structure was observed at 5 min of solvent evaporation time. It is interesting to highlight that as the evaporation time increased, the pure water flux decreased as the result of compact denser membrane. Benefitting the special feature of LSMM that tends to migrate upwards upon mixing, the LSMM effectively assisted OGCN photocatalyst to the top layer of the membrane. This was revealed by SEM top surface images that more OGCN photocatalyst particles were seen distributed on the dense top layer of the membrane upon longer solvent evaporation time supported by the membrane topography analysis. It was found that the phenol reduction by rejection and photocatalytic tests was the highest at 5 min solvent evaporation time, whilst water flux was the lowest. The obtained results showed that the LSMM has indeed assisted the positioning of OGCN towards the top layer of the membrane and consequently increased the photocatalytic activity of the membrane on phenol.