Constructing high-performance GO membrane with pore-adjustable polymer nanoparticles

Desalination of textile wastewater is an effective measure to reduce environmental pollution and realize resource reuse. Graphene oxide (GO) membrane is regarded as one of the first choices for textile wastewater desalination due to its chemical resistance, strong mechanical properties, and adjustable interlayer channels. Here, we propose a polyaniline (PANI) particle incorporation strategy and use the dedoping effect of polyaniline to provide an additional permeation pathway through one-step alkali treatment to accelerate water molecule transport. Polyaniline (PANI) doped with polystyrene sulfonic acid (PSS) nanoparticles were synthesized and incorporated into GO membranes, followed by crosslinking of glutaraldehyde (GA) for stability and alkali treatment for more porosity generation. The as-prepared BGO/PANI-PSS membrane with 30% PANI-PSS addition displayed a flux of 70.4 LMH/bar, 99.3%, and 4.8% rejection for Congo red and NaCl, respectively, exhibiting 5.9 times higher permeability than that of GO membrane with similar dye rejection. This work provides a facile strategy for designing GO composite membranes for dye/salt separation.