Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-7-2022
Abstract
Challenges exist in the wastewater treatment of dyes produced by the world’s growing textiles industry. Common problems facing traditional wastewater treatments include low retention values and breaking the chemical bonds of some dye molecules, which in some cases can release byproducts that can be more harmful than the original dye. This research illustrates that track-etched polycarbonate filtration membranes with 100-nanometer diameter holes can be functionalized with azo dye direct red 80 at 1000 µM, creating a filter that can then be used to remove the entire negatively charged azo dye molecule for a 50 µM solution of the same dye, with a rejection value of 96.4 ± 1.4%, at a stable flow rate of 114 ± 5 µL/min post-functionalization. Post-functionalization, Na+ and NO3− ions had on average 17.9%, 26.0%, and 31.1% rejection for 750, 500, and 250 µM sodium nitrate solutions, respectively, at an average flow rate of 177 ± 5 µL/min. Post-functionalization, similar 50 µM azo dyes had increases in rejection from 26.3% to 53.2%. Rejection measurements were made using ultraviolet visible-light spectroscopy for dyes, and concentration meters using ion selective electrodes for Na+ and NO3− ions.
Recommended Citation
Cockerham, C.; Caruthers, A.; McCloud, J.; Fortner, L.M.; Youn, S.; McBride, S.P. Azo-Dye-Functionalized Polycarbonate Membranes for Textile Dye and Nitrate Ion Removal. Micromachines 2022, 13, 577. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13040577
Comments
The copy or record is available from the publisher at https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13040577. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Datasets are posted at https://mds.marshall.edu/physics_data/1/. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).