Abstract:
Textile, leather, printing, paper, plastic and other industries have been producing large
amount of waste water containing harmful dyes now a days. Most dyes that are stable to
ultraviolet light are not decomposable in the textile industry. They are also immune to aerobic
digestion which makes them a long-term water pollutant. To reduce the risk of
contamination, dyes should be treated before they are released into rivers. In the last 3
decades, membrane-based separations have become increasingly common and one of the
most exciting 21st century technologies. In the process to refine a wide range of fluids from
water and waste water to pharmaceutical and chemical materials, membrane technology is an
advanced wastewater treatment technology. Membrane procedure is of greater interest
because the unit volume is reduced, process water is recycled and useful materials are
recovered for other uses.
The current research work was focused on the careful analysis of literature, the
research gap and the necessary findings for selecting polymers and the suitable additives for
cationic dye removal. Polyurethane displayed a strong anti-fouling property that’s why PU
has been chosen as a basic polymer. Since, PU did not provide all the required properties of
fabricating membrane that’s why novel composites are blended with it as an additive. Thus,
the APTES and MCM-41 based covalent bounded dual natured fillers are prepared that is
mixed in appropriate amount (2.5%, 5%, 7.5% and 10%) with PU, which provides high
surface area in low volume in the membrane matrix. FTIR analysis was used to elaborate the
internal chemistry of polymer and amine/silica based filler, whereas AFM surface
morphology described the homogenous distribution of compositional element in membrane
blend via its 3D images. AFM technique is also used for grain analysis and surface
roughness data. Detail antifouling properties with membrane dye resistance ability described
that MCM-41/APTES based membranes just showed 10-11 % ir-reversible resistance with
88-89% flux recovery against dye contaminants. Negligible leaching, higher water adsorption
and lower pore size and lesser surface roughness recommend the membrane to be used in dye
separation filtration, two model dye name as crystal violet dye (MW: 407.979 g/mol) and
Pink dye (MW: 879.86 g/mol) were selected for filtration processes. Results revealed that
MCM-41/APTES membrane provided 82-87% clearance rate
