Fabrication of carbon nanomaterial-based conductive membrane for microalgae harvesting

Abstract

Conductive membrane is a membrane that can remove and prevent foulants under an electric field, which allows long-term microalgae filtration with high efficiency. The key technology is to fabricate highly conductive membrane. In this study, to verify effects of the conductive membrane, membrane cleaning efficiency by an electrochemical method was compared with conventional membrane cleaning methods using conductive silver membranes. High foulants removal ability with the electric field revealed the potential of the conductive membrane. Carbon nanomaterials, well known for high conductivity, had been used for conductive membrane preparation and two conductive membranes were fabricated: One is a carbon nanotube embedded polyacrylonitrile membrane embedding a stainless steel mesh as a supporting layer. The other is a carbon nanofiber-silica hybrid membrane. Both membranes showed improvement of microalgae harvesting performance when the electric field was applied. This research demonstrated the great fouling inhibition effect of the carbon nanomaterial-based membrane and suggested the promising potential of the conductive membrane which will reduce cost and increase efficiency of microalgae harvesting process.