Polyvinylidene Fluoride and Titanium Dioxide Ultrafiltration Photocatalytic Membrane: Fabrication, Morphology, and Its Application in Textile Wastewater Treatment

Effluent from textile mills is considered one of the most polluted among all industrial effluents because it contains a large amount of toxic dyes that are released during the dyeing processes. Conventional methods have been found to be inefficient in removing those toxic synthetic dyes from the effluent. Entrapped photocatalytic membrane (EPM) is one of the recently established technologies that has very good potential in treating textile effluent. EPM combines photocatalysis, an advanced oxidation process, and membrane separation in a single unit to treat the effluent. In this paper, fabrication and characterization of an ultrafiltration EPM composed of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and titanium dioxide (TiO2) was conducted. Different concentrations of TiO2 (0%, 1%, 2%, and 3% by weight) were used to fabricate EPMs. The increase in the concentration of TiO2 changed the morphological behavior of the membrane, which was evaluated using the results obtained from scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), atomic force microscopy (AFM), contact angle, and tensile stress studies. EPM was employed in a photocatalytic reactor to remove Remazol Turquoise Blue dye from synthetic textile effluent. The incorporation of TiO2 enhanced the performance of the membrane by providing high photocatalytic activity under ultraviolet (UV) illumination. After 4.5 h of operation of the EPM containing 3% TiO2, the removal of total organic carbon (TOC) and color were 91% and 93%, respectively.