Soy protein amyloid-carbon hybrid membranes for water purification

Abstract

Human activities such as industrialization, power generation and extraction of natural resources have produced significantly high levels of pollutants, including certain heavy metals and metal cyanides, which contaminate water bodies around the world. Existing technologies for the purification of polluted waters are mainly costly and specific to ions, therefore developing new treatments are paramount for a sustainable future2. A novel approach has been suggested by Bolisetty et al.,utilizing carbon and amyloid hybrid membranes to filter heavy metal pollutants, which can address the limitations of existing technology. This report will demonstrate the optimization of amyloid fibril formation from soy protein isolate (SPI), atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging of the amyloid fibrils and the fabrication of a lab-scale carbon and SPI amyloid hybrid membranes. The membranes were used to filter heavy-metal solutions and the efficiency of heavy metal removal is analyzed by inductively coupled plasma – optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) technique. These SPI amyloid hybrid membranes have relatively high efficiency in heavy metal removal, postulated to be due to the amyloids’ properties and their ability to selectively adsorb heavy metal contaminants, and will be further discussed in the report.