Performance of tight ultrafiltration membrane in textile wastewater treatment via MPR system : effect of pressure on membrane fouling

Abstract

Industrial textile wastewater can be considered as main water polluting source in which constitutes a threat to human health and ecosystems; due to high water consumption and generated a large volume of color liquid waste. In the present study, the effect of various applied pressure in membrane photocatalytic reactor (MPR) system using ZnO-PEG nanoparticles and polypiperazine amide tight ultrafiltration (UF-PPA) for textile wastewater treatment was systematically investigated mainly through membrane fouling phenomenon. Results showed that the final permeate flux after 180 min was found to increase with the increase of applied pressure which obtained 0.4133 at 6 bar. Under 6 bar of pressure, the dye rejection of permeate was successfully reduced by approximately 100%. The Field Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) analysis was also revealed that 6 bar of applied pressure did not affect or changed the structure of membrane cross-sectional pattern of UF-PPA membrane. In summary, the integrated usage of ZnO-PEG nanoparticles in photocatalysis combined with UF-PPA process improved the membrane fouling phenomenon and able to completely remove the colour from the feed of industrial dye wastewater.