The effectiveness Study of Different Membranes in Treating Industrial Wastewater

Abstract

This paper focuses on the effectiveness study of different membranes in treating petroleum based wastewater. Polysulfone (PSF) and Polyether Sulfone (PES) were prepared using phase inversion method in NMP solvent. The composition of membrane was varied by manipulating the PVP additives concentration (5 wt%) in the membrane dope solution. The morphological study of prepared membranes was analysed using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) while the permeating flux and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) rejection rate were determined accordingly by using the refinery wastewater as the feed. The result found that the permeating flux increased as the operating pressure increased. However, for COD rejection, it was reported that only certain membrane show the best rejection. To clarify and support this finding, the membrane performance was further analyzed by determining the Total Dissolved Solid (TDS) rejection for PSF2 and PES2 membrane samples. The result showed that both membranes recorded relatively high TDS rejection which can be justified by the morphological studies of each samples. Therefore, this study proved that the membrane treatment have a high potential to treat the industrial wastewater for a larger scale.