Dye removal using 4A-zeolite/polyvinyl alcohol mixed matrix membrane adsorbents: preparation, characterization, adsorption, kinetics, and thermodynamics

Abstract

In pursuit of improving performance of the methylene blue adsorption process, the potential of a novel 4A-zeolite/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) membrane adsorbent was investigated. Adding 4A-zeolite particles to the PVA membrane adsorbent provided an effective structure for the adsorptive membrane in dye removal processes. Effect of zeolite content was also studied via synthesis of different mixed matrix membrane adsorbents (MMMAs) with 5, 10, 15, and 20 wt% 4A-zeolite content. Morphology of MMMAs was analyzed by scanning electron microscope and the intermolecular interactions were determined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. X-ray diffraction was performed to determine the crystal structure of MMMAs. For the sake of finding optimum condition, the adsorption capacity was examined at various operating parameters, such as contact time, temperature, pH, and initial concentration. The maximum value of the adsorption capacity (q e) of 41.08 mg g−1 and the highest removal efficiency of 87.41 % were obtained by applying 20 wt% loading of 4A-zeolite. The experimental data were fitted well with the Freundlich adsorption isotherm model (R 2 = 0.9917) compared with the Langmuir (R 2 = 0.9489) and the Tempkin (R 2 = 0.8886) adsorption isotherm models, and the adsorption kinetic data verified the best fitting with the pseudo-second-order model (R 2 = 0.9999). The estimated data for Gibb’s free energy (ΔG°) showed that the adsorption process is spontaneous at lower temperature values and non-spontaneous at higher temperature values. Other evaluated thermodynamic parameters such as changing in enthalpy (ΔH°) and entropy (ΔS°) revealed that the adsorption process is exothermic with an increase in orderliness at the solid/solution interface.