Treatment of industrial effluents using polyelectrolyte membranes

Wastewater treatment using self-assembled membranes is an upcoming research area and it is believed that this technology is much superior to other conventional membranes. The present study demonstrates the usefulness of chitosan/polystyrene sulfonate (CHI/PSS) based multilayer membranes in the treatment of paper mill and textile effluents. Membranes were prepared with different number of bilayers (5.5 to 20.5) and the effect of removal of color and COD of effluents were investigated. The effect of loading of dye and organic matter from the effluent were studied using UV–Visible absorption spectroscopy. The multilayers were found to be very effective in the removal of color and COD. A considerable reduction in color and COD was observed for the paper mill and textile effluents. The COD values reduced by 88% and around 70% in case of paper and textile effluents respectively. The color and COD removal was very efficient for the textile effluent around neutral and low pH regions.