Textile water treatment via adsorption of basic brown 1 dye on ZnO/PVC nanocomposite membrane through membrane adsorption process

Abstract

In this paper, PVC/ZnO nanocomposite membrane was prepared to remove toxic textile dye (basic brown 1) from synthetic wastewater solutions. Fourier transform infrared, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and zeta potential (ZP) investigated the prepared nanocomposite membrane. The results showed zinc present in the membrane as nanoparticle needles with the asymmetric spread in them. The hydrophilic behavior of the membrane surface was due to zinc oxide, which exhibits significant efficiency for the removal of commonly used basic brown 1 dye from an aqueous system. The prepared nanocomposite membrane efficiency was investigated by different parameters like pH, dye concentration, PVC/ZnO ratio, and time. The kinetics and isotherm of adsorption basic brown 1 dye adsorbed on PVC/ZnO nanocomposite membrane were studied. The efficiency of the prepared membrane reached 98.6% for dye removal from synthetic water after 60 min. The results showed that the pseudo-second-order model was favorable for the adsorption kinetics and isotherm. This assumes that the adsorption mechanism is the chemical adsorption process. It also showed that the Langmuir isothermal model is appropriate for the adsorption process, which means the adsorption was taking place as a monolayer process on homogeneous sites. Finally, the results revealed that the prepared nanocomposite membrane was less expensive, improving performance, and extending life expectancy. The separation process with low energy requirements, including low ultra-filtration and adsorption and mobility, was characterized by the extremely rapid reaction and high selectivity to remove the basic brown 1 dye.