In this study, advanced membranes were developed to enhance the treatment of industrial wastewater, offering high permeance and improved antifouling properties. Previous studies have typically used model foulants at low concentrations and have not investigated the performance of membranes against real industrial effluent. In this work, novel mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) based on PVC were fabricated, incorporating styrene-maleic anhydride copolymer (SMA) and graphene hydroxyl nanosheets (GOH) to overcome the trade-off between permeance and rejection efficiency, thereby improving antifouling properties. Two grades of SMA (XIBOND®285 and XIBOND®255) were blended with PVC at concentrations of 1 to 7 wt% to determine the optimal composition. Among these membranes, the M285-3 membrane with 3 wt% SMA285 showed the best antifouling performance against model foulants such as sodium alginate and chicken egg albumin, and had the highest flux recovery ratio (FRR) and the lowest irreversible fouling ratio (Rir). Then, the M285-3 membrane formulation was modified by adding 0.25 to 2 wt% GOH nanosheets to fabricate new MMMs. Among them, G-1 membrane exhibited the best separation performance and was able to reject 98% of COD from the dairy effluent. Additionally, the FRR for the model foulants and the dairy effluent was over 90%, and the amount of Rir was very low. The G-1 membrane also had the highest permeance and mechanical strength. Overall, this study provides an effective approach to enhance the hydrophilicity, permeance, and antifouling properties of membranes using commercially available SMA and GOH nanofillers.

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