Preparation of a novel polyvinyl chloride ultrafiltration membrane modified with graphene oxide nanoparticle derived from plastic waste for wastewater purification

Abstract The purpose of this study is to improve the performance of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) ultrafiltration membrane with graphene oxide (GO) that was synthesized from the pyrolysis of polypropylene (PP) bottles. The amount of GO loading in the membrane structure was 0.05, 0.15, and 0.25 wt%. x‐ray diffractometer, FTIR, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), contact angle (CA), water content, porosity, mechanical strength were used to characterize the synthesized membranes. Cross‐sectional SEM results of membranes indicated that the modification of the membrane caused the formation of finger‐like pores in the bottom part and also these holes increased the dye rejection efficiency in the membranes of (18 wt% PVC/2 wt% PVP/0.15 wt% GO) and (14 wt% PVC/2 wt% PVP/0.25 wt% GO). The CA of the synthesized membranes were decreased from 70 in (18 wt% PVC/2 wt% PVP) to 62 in (14 wt% PVC/2 wt% PVP/0.15 wt% GO), which indicates the increase in hydrophilicity of these membranes. The results showed that the best performance is related to the membranes (18 wt% PVC/2 wt% PVP/0.15 wt% GO) and (14 wt% PVC/2 wt% PVP/0.25 wt% GO) with a rejection efficiency of 92% and 83% for 100 ppm methyl blue.