Ahmad Azari

Nanofiber membranes show promise in the membrane field owing to their ability to achieve high flux and wide separation. This work focused on creating a membrane made from polyacrylonitrile and titanium dioxide (PAN/TiO2) through the spinning jet method. The characterization of the composited membrane was carried out by using XRD, FTIR, SEM, and FESEM techniques. The effectiveness of the fabricated composite membrane in treating grey water and its performance were experimented with on a laboratory scale. The Taguchi method was employed to design the performance experiments and optimize the effective parameters. The results indicated that decreasing PAN concentration and increasing rotation speed resulted in smaller nanofiber diameters, while adding TiO2 enhanced membrane hydrophilicity. The smallest achieved nanofiber diameter was 439 nm. The tests showed a maximum porosity of 71% and a minimum pore size of 0.511 µm. The laboratory results were analyzed using Minitab Software, which identified that the optimal conditions for the process were 13 wt% PAN concentration, 5500 rpm rotation speed, 5 wt% TiO2 concentration, and 2 bar pressure. In this case, the efficiency of the membrane in greywater treatment was 62.3%. Overall, the study suggests that PAN/TiO2 membranes are promising for grey water treatment applications.