Diaminoethane-crosslinked polyetherimide nanofiltration membrane for textile wastewater dye removal

Abstract

In this work, diaminoethane (DAE) is applied to improve the properties of polyetherimide (PEI) nanofiltration (NF) membranes via crosslinking process with the core objective of removal of textile dye from wastewater. The membranes were fabricated by phase inversion thin film casting technique, from PEI/acetone/NMP (n-methyl pyrollidone) dope solution, crosslinked with DAE 2.5 % v/v in methanol. The novelty of this study is that DAE has never been utilized to crosslink PEI NF membrane for removal of dye from textile wastewater. In this study, the parameters of composition of polyetherimide dope solution having acetone as non-solvent content are investigated to obtain a potential membrane for clarifying wastewater, which is one of major problems in Indonesia. A model dye was utilized, namely Reactive Red 120 (RR120) as a synthetic wastewater. It is found that the rejection of dye is increased along with the acetone content, and also by the crosslinking duration. The crosslinking between PEI and DAE is analyzed from the physical and chemical aspects, by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), respectively. A good performance in nanofiltration of RR120 synthetic dye wastewater is demonstrated with 92-98% dye rejection, which is quite reasonable compared to previous researches. This PEI-DAE NF is therefore promising not just for sustainable waste management, but also for the innovation and development in the ecology and environment of Indonesia.