From waste cellulose to effective biomembranes: Wastewater purification

Abstract

Pollution of water with toxic substances is increased. Therefore, innovative solutions for their treatment are essential. This paper represents results from an adsorption study where novel synthesized biobased membranes were applied in the removal of dye metanil yellow from wastewater solution. Batch adsorption tests were applied, where the different operational impacts including contact time, initial pollutant concentration, temperature, etc. were varied. Fabricated membranes were based on waste cellulose tobacco boxes modified by amino acid lysine with an aim to increase sorption capacity toward azo dye. Structural properties were examined by FE-SEM and ATR-FTIR techniques. The activities of materials prior to and after modification were compared. It was found that the modified material achieved a better sorption capacity. The resulting adsorption capacity for the improved membrane was 65 mg/l compared to 51 mg/l, at 45°C, for the base cellulose membrane. The kinetics of the process follows a pseudo second-order curve. The best agreement of the correlation factor R2 was shown with the Freundlich isotherm. The obtained results show the success of the modification with a good sorption capacity of the material towards the target pollutant. Overall, it can be concluded that the modified membranes lay a good foundation for potential application in industrial dye wastewater treatment systems.