Characterization and performance evaluation of in-house ultrafiltration membrane coupled with photocatalysis for 17α-methyltestosterone hormone removal

ABSTRACT 17α-methyltestosterone (MT) hormone is a synthetic androgenic steroid hormone commonly utilized to induce Nile tilapia transitioning for enhanced production yield. This study specifically focuses on the removal of MT using a photocatalytic membrane reactor (PMR), employing an in-house polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) ultrafiltration membrane modified with 1% nanomaterials (either TiO2 or α-Fe2O3). The performance of the in-house membranes was compared with the commercial NF03 membrane. The molecular weight cut-off of the in-house membrane falls within the ultrafiltration range. Under UV radiation, the PMR with PVDF/TiO2 and PVDF/α-Fe2O3 membranes achieved 100% MT removal. The MT removal by the NF03 membrane was only at 50%. In contrast, without light irradiation, the MT removal by all the membranes remained unchanged after 180 min, exhibiting lower performance. The incorporation of TiO2 and α-Fe2O3 enhanced water flux and MT removal. Notably, the catalytic activity was limited by the distribution and concentration of the catalyst at the membrane surface. The water contact angle did not correlate with the water flux for the composited membrane. The degradation of MT aligned well with pseudo-first-order kinetic models. Thus, the in-house ultrafiltration PMR demonstrated superior removal efficiency and lower operational costs than the commercial nanofiltration membrane, attributable to its photocatalytic activities.