Enhanced performance of polyvinylidene fluoride with triethanolamine and polyethylene glycol ultrafiltration membrane for textile wastewater treatment

Abstract

AbstractPollution resulting from textile industries wastewater, affects aquatic life, groundwater, crops, and human life. Hence, using membrane-based filtration technology to treat produced water opens new avenues for water recovery. In this work, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes with triethanolamine (TEA) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) were synthesized and tested as ultrafiltration (UF) materials for textile wastewater removal. PVDF UF membranes were synthesized by phase inversion method with different additives ratios (0, 1:0,1:1, 2:1, 2:2 of M0, M1, M2, M3, M4, respectively) of TEA and PEG. The PVDF UF membrane’s performance (water flus and dye rejection) was evaluated by synthetic disperse dyes and real textile industrial wastewater. The physical and chemical structure of PVDF UF membranes was investigated using FTIR, SEM, elongation, tensile strength, porosity, water uptake rate (WUR) and water contact angle (WCA) techniques. In comparison to virgin membrane (M0), the M2 UF membrane exhibited higher than 97.3% dye rejection for both disperse dyes removal with flux of 100 LMH due to the formation of dense sponge pores in the top layer with microvoid near the bottom, leading to high rejection with reasonable flux and cost-effective procedures. While for real textile industrial wastewater, M2 showed a good rejection of 90.4% and flux of 53.1 LMH due to other complications of suspended solids, organic aggregates, salts, etc. real sample. In the same line, this optimum M2 UF membrane demonstrated tensile strength of 8.6 MPa, porosity of 30.8%, WUR of 57.5%, and WCA of 78. Eventually, the prepared membranes have high dye removal efficiency and the treated water can be directly reused within the same textile industry in scouring and finishing processes, washing tanks, cooling towers, washing earth, and planting nonedible plants. Graphical abstract