Antibacterial CuO-PES-CA nancomposite membranes supported Cu⁰ nanoparticles for water permeability and reduction of organic pollutants

In this paper, we have reported plant mediated green synthesis of copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) which were further fabricated into mixed matrices of polyether sulfone (PES) and cellulose acetate (CA) by using solution casting technique. Assessment of selected parameters of the synthesized membranes included contact angle, salt rejection, flux behavior and tensile strength measurements. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) rejection measurement of PES-CA-CuO (I), Cu@PES-CA (II), Cu@PES-CA-CuO-1 (III) and Cu@PES-CA-CuO-2 (IV) were absolutely examined. Permeability of I was 65 L h⁻¹ m⁻² bar⁻¹ while after growing Cu nanoparticles on the surface of PES-CA-CuO, permeability of III and IV observed was 110 and 85 L h⁻¹ m⁻² bar⁻¹ respectively while porosity also exhibited a similar trend. BSA rejection also increased for III and IV respectively in comparison of I. The synthesized materials I–IV were screened out for the catalytic reduction of nitrophenols and IV showed a superior performance. E. coli, a model gram-negative bacterium was used in this study for investigating the antimicrobial activity of the afore-mentioned membranes with III and IV exhibited more than 75% inhibition.