FULL PAPER Novel thin film nanocomposite membranes incorporated with polyoxovanadate nanocluster for high water flux and antibacterial properties Mojtaba Amini 1 | Zahra Shekari 1 | Ali Akbari 2,3 | Hadi Naslhajian 1 | Ayda Sheykhi 1 | Esmaeil Karimi 4 | Sanjeev Gautam 5 | Keun Hwa Chae 6 1 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Maragheh, Maragheh, Iran 2 Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Research Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran 3 Solid Tumor Research Center, Cellular and Molecular Medicine Institute, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran 4 Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Maragheh, Maragheh, Iran 5 Dr. S.S. Bhatnagar University Institute of Chemical Engineering & Technology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, 160-014, India 6 Advanced Analysis Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul, 136-791, South Korea Correspondence Mojtaba Amini, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Maragheh, Maragheh, Iran. Email: mamini@maragheh.ac.ir Using interfacial polymerization (IP) of m-phenylenediamine aqueous solution containing polyoxovanadate nanoclusters (POV) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) in organic solution, we fabricated a novel polyamide (PA)- polyoxovanadate nanocluster (POV) nanocomposite membranes (PA-POV TFN). The chemical structures and morphologies of the synthesized membranes were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, atomic force microscope (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and water contact angle measure- ments. Experimental results showed that the performances of PA-POV TFN membranes are remarkably dependent on POV incorporation in the mem- branes, which could be controlled by using different amounts of POV particles. Moreover, the PA-POV TFN membranes illustrated outstanding antibacterial properties against Gram-negative E. coli. On the other hand, the incorporation of various amounts of POV in the membranes improved the membrane separa- tion performances (water flux and salt rejection) as well as the antibacterial activity in FO process as compared to the original thin-film composite (TFC) polyamide membrane. KEYWORDS Polyoxovanadate, antibacterial property, desalination, interfacial polymerization, membrane 1 | INTRODUCTION Presently, more than 650 million global populations suf- fer from inadequate safe and clean drinking water. [1] Based on the United Nations report, [2] it is predicted that half of the worldwide people will be staying in the areas of high freshwater scarcity by 2030, resulting in a great threat to the sustainable development of human society. Thus, membrane technology could be considered as one of the most powerful tools for water desalination due to its high stability, efficiency, low cost, easy operation and low energy consuming. [3] Various types of separation membrane such as reverse osmosis membrane (RO), nanofiltration membrane, ultrafiltration membrane, microfiltration membrane and forward osmosis mem- brane (FO) have been developed, [4] which among these, forward osmosis (FO) as a novel membrane technology (using natural osmotic pressure as a driving force) has many advantages including, low cost, [5] easy cleaning, [6] low fouling tendency [7] and so on. It is noteworthy that high fouling tendency, low hydrophilicity and poor per- formance of FO membranes limited their industrial Received: 3 September 2019 Revised: 8 December 2019 Accepted: 11 December 2019 DOI: 10.1002/aoc.5494 Appl Organometal Chem. 2020;e5494. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/aoc © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1 of 8 https://doi.org/10.1002/aoc.5494