# Cadmium Removal from Synthetic Waste-Water Using TiO2-Modified Polymeric Membrane Through Electrochemical Separation System

## TL;DR

A new membrane with TiO2 nanoparticles was developed to efficiently remove cadmium from synthetic wastewater using an electrochemical system.

## Contribution

A TiO2-modified polymeric membrane was synthesized and shown to significantly enhance cadmium removal efficiency.

## Key findings

- TiO2 nanoparticles improved the membrane's structure and uniformity.
- The TiO2-modified membrane achieved 95.53% cadmium removal in 1.5 hours.
- The membrane showed excellent thermal stability and ionic conductivity.

## Abstract

In this paper, a new polymeric membrane including polymers (cellulose acetate, polyethylene glycol 400), copolymer poly(4-vinylpyridine)-block-polystyrene, and TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized by the phase inversion method. In order to investigate the presence and the influence of the TiO2 nanoparticles on the membrane matrix, a polymeric membrane without TiO2 nanoparticles was prepared by the same preparation method. The structure of the polymeric membranes was characterized by several techniques, such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and impedance spectroscopy. Also, the water contact angle, water retention, and porosity were determined. The results showed that the TiO2 nanoparticles were incorporated into the pores and onto the surface of the polymeric membrane, which resulted in a more uniform structure. In addition, these polymeric membranes were tested for the removal of cadmium ions from synthetic waste-water using a laboratory-scale electrochemical separation system with a custom-built setup. The results showed that the polymeric membrane with TiO2 nanoparticles showed a high cadmium ions removal rate (95.53%), compared to the polymeric membrane without TiO2 nanoparticles (85.29%), after a 1.5 h electrochemical separation test. The final results indicated that the polymeric membranes prepared with TiO2 nanoparticles had excellent thermal stability and exhibited the best ionic conductivity. The electrochemical separation system proved that the obtained polymeric membranes effectively remove cadmium from the synthetic waste-water.