PROGRAMME

Proper treatment of oily wastewater before its discharge is necessary to abide by the environmental regulations and reutilizing the treated oily wastewater in relevant applications. Membranes have been shown to be promising with a strong potential in oily wastewater treatment with significant research being carried out to improve its properties and performance. Membranes offer significant benefits, such as high removal efficiency and low power consumption, but mainly suffer from fouling. In this work, hydrophilic functionalized CNTs/polylactic acid (fCNTs/PLA) mixed matrix membranes are proposed for efficient oil-water separation for the treatment of oily wastewaters. Results showed that adding a small percentage of the fCNTs improved emulsion permeability by 75% with 100% rejection of oil. Characterization of the membranes were tested using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA). With the biodegradable and biocompatible characteristics of PLA, this study provides a promising development and application of green, sustainable membranes for the separation of oil from oil water emulsions.