A Contrastive Study of Self-Assembly and Physical Blending Mechanism of TiO Blended Polyethersulfone Membranes for Enhanced Humic Acid Removal and Alleviation of Membrane Fouling.

In this study, membrane fabrication was achieved by two different methods: (i) self-assembly and (ii) physical blending of TiO in PES membrane for humic acid filtration. The TiO nanoparticles were self-assembled by using TBT as the precursor and pluronic F127 as triblock copolymers around the membrane pores. This was achieved by manipulating the hydrolysis and condensation reaction of TBT precursors during the non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS) process.