Treatment of textile plant effluent by hollow fiber nanofiltration membrane and multi-component steady state modeling

Polysulfone based nanofiltration (NF) hollow fibers upto 360 Da cut off were prepared by interfacial polymerization of meta-phenylenediamine and trimesoyl chloride. Hollow fibers were characterized in terms of scanning electron and atomic force microscopy, permeability, molecular weight cut off (MWCO), pore size distribution and surface zeta potential. Increase in TMC concentration reduced the MWCO and average pore size of the membrane. MWCO was decreased from 780 to 360 Da and average pore radius was reduced from 7.3 to 5 Å as TMC concentration increased from 0.1 to 1 wt%. A textile effluent containing four reactive dyes and salt was successfully treated by this hollow fiber. A completely predictive steady state multicomponent model was developed to quantify the system performance.