REMOVAL OF CU (II) AND FE (II) IONS THROUGH THIN FILM COMPOSITE (TFC) WITH HYBRID MEMBRANE

Abstract

In recent years, there has been rising concern about environmental issues and specifically about the presence of heavy metal in water. Therefore, the removal of heavy metal ions from wastewater is very important with respect to the ecological health and public health. This paper presents the possibility of removing metal ions by using a hybrid membrane through thin film composite (TFC) membrane which represents an integrated polymer complexation method. The hybrid membrane was formulated from blended poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and chitosan which was cross linked with various concentration of tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) such as 1%, 3% w/w and 5%w/w through using sol-gel technique under acidic condition. The hybrid membrane was coated on polysulfone membrane as the porous support. The separation process was conducted on the different heavy metal solutions containing Cu (II) and Fe (II) ions at various concentrations (50,100,150,200,250 ppm).The properties of the thin film composite (TFC) membranes were characterized by using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and hermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). The influence of TEOS concentration and Cu (II) and Fe (II) ion concentration was investigated with the aim to identify on the removal percentage efficiency of Cu (II) and Fe (II) ions. Result showed that the fabricated thin film composites with higher concentrations of TEOS were able to remove higher percentage Cu (II) and Fe (II) from the feed solution.

Keywords

• Hybrid membrane
• Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA)
• Chitosan
• Tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS)
• Thin Film Composite