{
  "abstract": "Fabricating multifunctional membranes from sustainable and innovative materials has become a significant focus in both academic and industry, as membranes can remove heavy metals and pathogenic contaminants from wastewater in a single step. This research introduces a multifunctional membrane composed of lignin (L) modified silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) incorporated into renewable polycaprolactone (PCL), resulting in cost-effective and highly crosslinked membranes produced through a solvent-casting approach. A comprehensive series of characterizations and tests were performed to evaluate the membranes' performance, including Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), morphology by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), mechanical testing, and adsorption experiments, as well as microbial colony count and antibacterial activity. Among the different formulations, the membrane containing 1 wt% of L-Ag NPs showed optimal performance, achieving a tensile stress of 22.80 MPa. Whereas the membrane containing 2 wt% L-Ag NPs exhibited significant removal efficiencies, achieving 94.06% for Cd²⁺, 92.18% for PO₄ ³⁻, and 87.76% for NO₃ ⁻ at pH 6 and 90 min at 50 °C. The kinetic, isotherm, and thermodynamic characteristics of adsorption performance were examined, which showed that the elimination procedure using the PCL-L-Ag 2% NPs membrane was endothermic and increased randomness at the solid/solution interface. Notably, the membrane maintained regeneration efficiencies of 82.7%, 75.9%, and 72.4% for Cd²⁺, PO₄ ³⁻, and NO₃ ⁻, respectively, after three consecutive cycles, demonstrating excellent operational stability and reusability. Moreover, bacterial colony counting showed that PCL-L-Ag NPs at 2% caused a marked reduction in total viable microbe counts after 48 h, reaching 8.4 × 10³ CFU mL⁻¹ (97.10% improvement), comparable to the PCL blank (6.9 × 10⁵ CFU mL⁻¹). These results were further corroborated by antibacterial activity. The PCL-L-Ag 2% NPs membrane exhibits strong potential as a reusable, multifunctional material for treating real agricultural drainage water, effectively reducing both inorganic pollutants and microbial contaminants.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Water Treatment and Desalination Unit, Hydrogeochemistry Department, Water Resources and Desert Soils Division, Desert Research Center P. O. B. 11753 Cairo Egypt.",
    "Egypt Desalination Research Center of Excellence, Desert Research Center Cairo 11753 Egypt.",
    "Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University Giza Egypt.",
    "Department of Physics, College of Science, Taif University Taif Saudi Arabia.",
    "Chemical Metrology Division, National Institute of Standards (NIS) Tersa Street, El Haram, P. O. Box 136 Giza 12211 Egypt hesham.moustafa21@gmail.com.",
    "Nanotechnology Research Centre (NTRC), The British University in Egypt El Sherouk City Cairo Egypt."
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 4,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Heba Isawi",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-2063-8987"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Mohamed H Hemida"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Emad M Ahmed"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4,
        5
      ],
      "name": "Hesham Moustafa",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-1034-8663"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/escpbdynegnmd.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1039/d6ra09564j",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13719270/?tool=EBI",
  "id": "escpbdynegnmd",
  "issns": [
    "2046-2069"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13719270",
  "language": "eng",
  "licence": "CC-BY-NC",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-NC",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2312|Adsorption and biosorption for pollutant removal"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7224325133",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13719270/pdf/?tool=EBI",
  "pmcid": "PMC13719270",
  "pmid": "42960383",
  "published": "2026-10-30",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/escpbdynegnmd.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-31T00:20:37Z",
      "native_id": "PMC:PMC13719270",
      "source": "europepmc",
      "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13719270"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-31T12:21:46Z",
      "native_id": "MED:42960383",
      "source": "europepmc",
      "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42960383"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "earth",
      "origin": "openalex:2312|Adsorption and biosorption for pollutant removal",
      "subfield": "hydrology-soils"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Multifunctional polycaprolactone–lignin–silver nanocomposite membranes for simultaneous removal of heavy metal, nutrient and microbial contaminants from wastewater",
  "title_text": "Multifunctional polycaprolactone–lignin–silver nanocomposite membranes for simultaneous removal of heavy metal, nutrient and microbial contaminants from wastewater",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-02T03:21:21Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/escpbdynegnmd",
  "venue": "RSC advances",
  "versions": []
}