Seawater desalination is a worldwide concern for the sustainable production of drinking water. In this regard, membrane distillation (MD) has shown the potential for effective brine treatment. However, the lack of appropriate MD membranes limits its industrial expansion since they experience fouling and wetting issues. Therefore, hydrophobic membranes are promising candidates to successfully deal with such phenomena that are typical for commercially available membranes. Here, several graphene/polyvinylidene (PVDF_G) membranes with different graphene loading (0–10 wt%) were prepared through a phase inversion method. After full characterization of the resulting membranes, the surface revealed that the well-dispersed graphene in the polymer matrix (0.33 and 0.5 wt% graphene loading) led to excellent water repellence together with a rough structure, and a large effective surface area. Importantly, antifungal activity tests of films indicated an increase in the inhibition percentage for PVDF_G membranes against the Curvularia sp. fungal strain. However, the antifungal surface properties were found to be the synergistic result of graphene toxicity and surface topography.

中文翻译：

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具有增强的抗真菌活性的淡化水的PVDF /石墨烯纳米复合膜的表征

海水淡化是全世界饮用水可持续生产的关注点。在这方面，膜蒸馏（MD）已显示出有效进行盐水处理的潜力。但是，缺乏合适的MD膜限制了其工业发展，因为它们会遇到结垢和湿润的问题。因此，疏水性膜是成功处理可商购膜的典型现象的有前途的候选者。在这里，通过相转化法制备了几种具有不同石墨烯负载量（0-10 wt％）的石墨烯/聚乙烯基（PVDF_G）膜。对所得膜进行全面表征后，表面显示出聚合物基体中分散良好的石墨烯（0.33和0.5 wt％的石墨烯负载量）导致了出色的防水性和粗糙的结构，以及大的有效表面积。重要的是，薄膜的抗真菌活性测试表明，PVDF_G膜对细菌的抑制作用百分比增加了。弯孢 菌 真菌菌株。然而，发现抗真菌表面性质是石墨烯毒性和表面形貌的协同结果。