Preparation, characterization, and performance of polysulfone/alkyl phosphonium montmorillonite nanofiltration membrane for dye removalNurul Hafizah Mohd Afindi

Abstract

Recently, dye has been broadly used in many applications especially in industries. Discharged of dyes wastewater generates large volumes of effluents on a daily basis, which contains substantial loads of organic compounds, inorganic salts, and suspended impurities. Polysulfone nanofiltration membrane had been applied for dye­ containing wastewater treatment. However, one of the disadvantage of polysulfone is it easy to cause fouling onto the membrane surface. So, to overcome this problem, nanoclay, alkyl phosphonium montrnorillonite (APM) was used to decrease the fouling and to increase hydrophilicity. In this study, the effects of polysulfone/alkyl posphonium montrnorillonite nanofiltration membrane on efficiency of dyes removal from wastewater and able to improve the overall performance were determined. Polysulfone (PSf) of 19 wt% and 21 wt% were used as the polymer backbone for nanofiltration (NF) membrane and alkyl phosphonium montmorillonite (APM) consist of range of 0.0 wt%, 0.1 wt%, 0.5 wt% and 1.0 wt% were used as nano-composite material in order to improve hydrophilicity of the native membrane property.The Nanofiltration membranes were fabricated using dry/wet phase inversion technique with an electrical casting machine.