Graphene Oxide-Doped Polymer Inclusion Membrane for Remediation of Pharmaceutical Contaminant of Emerging Concerns: Ibuprofen

A state-of-art-review on emerging contaminants: Environmental chemistry, health effect, and modern treatment methods

Pollution problems are increasingly becoming e a priority issue from both scientific and technological points of view. The dispersion and frequency of pollutants in the environment are on the rise, leading to the emergence have been increasing, including of a new class of contaminants that not only impact the environment but also pose risks to people's health. Therefore, developing new methods for identifying and quantifying these pollutants classified as emerging contaminants is imperative. These methods enable regulatory actions that effectively minimize their adverse effects to take steps to regulate and reduce their impact. On the other hand, these new contaminants represent a challenge for current technologies to be adapted to control and remove emerging contaminants and involve innovative, eco-friendly, and sustainable remediation technologies. There is a vast amount of information collected in this review on emerging pollutants, comparing the identification and quantification methods, the technologies applied for their control and remediation, and the policies and regulations necessary for their operation and application. In addition, This review will deal with different aspects of emerging contaminants, their origin, nature, detection, and treatment concerning water and wastewater.

The Application of Polymer Inclusion Membranes for the Removal of Emerging Contaminants and Synthetic Dyes from Aqueous Solutions-A Mini Review

Pollution of the environment, including water resources, is currently one of the greatest challenges due to emerging new contaminants of anthropogenic origin. Of particular concern are emerging organic pollutants such as pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, and pesticides, but also other industrial pollutants, for example, synthetic dyes. The growing demand for environmentally friendly and economical methods of removing emerging contaminants and synthetic dyes from wastewater resulted in increased interest in the possibility of using techniques based on the application of polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs) for this purpose. PIM-based techniques are promising methods for eliminating emerging contaminants and synthetic dyes from aqueous solutions, including wastewater, due to high efficiency, membranes versatility, ease/low cost of preparation, and high selectivity. This review describes the latest developments related to the removal of various emerging contaminants and synthetic dyes from aqueous solutions using PIMs over the past few years, with particular emphasis on research aimed at increasing the effectiveness and selectivity of PIMs, which may contribute to wider use of these methods in the future.

The Use of Polymer Inclusion Membranes for the Removal of Metal Ions from Aqueous Solutions-The Latest Achievements and Potential Industrial Applications: A Review

The growing demand for environmentally friendly and economical methods of removing toxic metal ions from polluted waters and for the recovery of valuable noble metal ions from various types of waste, which are often treated as their secondary source, has resulted in increased interest in techniques based on the utilization of polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs). PIMs are characterized by many advantages (e.g., the possibility of simultaneous extraction and back extraction, excellent stability and high reusability), and can be adapted to the properties of the removed target analyte by appropriate selection of carriers, polymers and plasticizers used for their formulation. However, the selectivity and efficiency of the membrane process depends on many factors (e.g., membrane composition, nature of removed metal ions, composition of aqueous feed solution, etc.), and new membranes are systematically designed to improve these parameters. Numerous studies aimed at improving PIM technology may contribute to the wider use of these methods in the future on an industrial scale, e.g., in wastewater treatment. This review describes the latest achievements related to the removal of various metal ions by PIMs over the past 3 years, with particular emphasis on solutions with potential industrial application.

Innovative progress in graphene derivative-based composite hybrid membranes for the removal of contaminants in wastewater: A review

Graphene derivatives (graphene oxide) are proved as an innovative carbon materials that are getting more attraction in membrane separation technology because of its unique properties and capability to attain layer-to-layer stacking, existence of high oxygen-based functional groups, and generation of nanochannels that successively enhance the selective pollutants removal performance. The review focused on the recent innovations in the development of graphene derivative-based composite hybrid membranes (GDHMs) for the removal of multiple contaminants from wastewater treatment. To design GDHMs, it was observed that at first GO layers undergo chemical treatments with either different polymers, plasma, or sulfonyl. After that, the chemically treated GO layers were decorated with various active functional materials (either with nanoparticles, magnetite, or nanorods, etc.). By preparing GDHMs, properties such as permeability, porosity, hydrophilicity, water flux, stability, feasibility, mechanical strength, regeneration ability, and antifouling tendency were excessively improved as compared to pristine GO membranes. Different types of novel GDHMs were able to remove toxic dyes (77-100%), heavy metals/ions (66-100%), phenols (40-100%), and pharmaceuticals (74-100%) from wastewater with high efficiency. Some of GDHMs were capable to show dual contaminant removal efficacy and antibacterial activity. In this study, it was observed that the most involved mechanisms for pollutants removal are size exclusion, transport, electrostatic interactions, adsorption, and donnan exclusion. In addition to this, interaction mechanism during membrane separation technology has also been elaborated by density functional theory. At last, in this review the discussion related to challenges, limitations, and future outlook for the applications of GDHMs has also been provided.

Ibuprofen Removal by Graphene Oxide and Reduced Graphene Oxide Coated Polysulfone Nanofiltration Membranes

The presence of pharmaceutical products, and their metabolites, in wastewater has become a focus of growing environmental concern. Among these pharmaceutical products, ibuprofen (IBU) is one of the most consumed non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and it can enter the environment though both human and animal consumption, because it is not entirely absorbed by the body, and the pharmaceutical industry wastewater. Nanofiltration has been described as an attractive process for the treatment of wastewater containing pharmaceutical products. In this paper, the modification of a polysulfone nanofiltration membrane by coating with graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) has been carried out. The morphology and elemental composition of the active layer of unmodified and modified membranes were analyzed by scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), respectively. Initial characterization membranes was carried out, studying their water permeability coefficient and their permeate flux and rejection coefficients, at different applied pressures, using magnesium chloride solutions. The behavior of both pristine and coated membranes against ibuprofen solutions were analyzed by studying the permeate fluxes and the rejection coefficients at different pressures and at different contaminant concentrations. The results have shown that both GO and RGO coated membranes lead to higher values of ibuprofene rejection than that of uncoated membrane, the latter being the one that presents better results in the studies of permeability, selectivity, and fouling.