Upcycled eggshell membranes reinforced with graphene oxide for high-performance dye separation
Materials Advances, 2026 (ESCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1039/d6ma00359a
- Dergi Adı: Materials Advances
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Scopus, Compendex, INSPEC, Directory of Open Access Journals
- Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
The escalating demand for freshwater, driven by global population growth and industrial expansion, necessitates the development of sustainable and cost-effective wastewater treatment technologies. This study presents a novel, eco-friendly biocomposite membrane fabricated by functionalizing waste eggshell membrane (ESM) with graphene oxide (GO) via a scalable drop-casting technique. Morphological and chemical characterizations, including SEM, TEM, FTIR, and XRD, confirmed the successful integration of GO nanosheets, which transformed the inherently hydrophobic ESM surface (contact angle ∼92°) into a highly hydrophilic structure (contact angle ∼35°). Filtration performance was evaluated using anionic cresol red dye in a U-tube osmosis assembly. The results demonstrate that the ESM/GO nanocomposites significantly outperform bare ESM, achieving an 80.8% improvement in dye rejection and reaching a near-complete rejection rate with a permeability as low as 0.0002%. This enhanced performance is attributed to the synergistic effect of reduced pore size, modulated interlayer spacing of GO, and strong electrostatic repulsion between the negatively charged GO surface and anionic dye molecules. Furthermore, the incorporation of GO increased the water flux from 2.6 to 3.7 L m−2 h−1, underscoring the membrane's efficiency. These findings suggest that upcycling biopolymer waste into GO-functionalized membranes offers a high-performance, sustainable alternative to synthetic polymer membranes for advanced water purification applications.