Antimicrobial membrane surface modification by copper-doped polysaccharide coating on ultrafiltration membrane for advanced wastewater treatment

The growing global population contaminates the growing requirement for clean process water for Industries and sanitary pure water for drinking. Ultrafiltration is an established approach for producing water for domestic and industrial use, and it shows significant potential in eliminating pollutants from surface water. In the present work, the copper-chitosan layer was coated over a Polysulfone membrane with varying concentrations of copper in the top coating layer, and the membranes were characterized. Scanning electron micrographs demonstrated that the membrane’s top surface impact was modified by an appropriately dense layer of chitosan coating. Zeta potential examinations revealed that the membrane surface charge enhanced in absolute terms with chitosan covering and increased further with copper concentration. Removal of cationic dye was greater as compared to the removal of the anionic dye by the coated membranes based on the surface charge With increasing Copper concentration in the top coating layer, the increasing bactericidal properties against Gram-negative bacteria were observed when the membrane was treated with the bacterial solution. The highest concentration of copper loading in the membrane was associated with the lowest bacterial count (cfu/ml) after swabbing the membrane surface to evaluate the number of colony forming units attached to the membrane surface. Thus, the present paper demonstrates a novel way of forming an antimicrobial layer over the conventional ultrafiltration layer to achieve the desired separation of dye and antibacterial performance.