Fabrication and characterization of PVC/MWCNT Polymer Inclusion Membranes (PIMs) for malachite green removal

Transportation using polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs) is one of the selective and effective method that can be used for MG dye removal from synthetic solution. With the present of nanoparticles that features the ion conductivity which is MWCNT in the membrane, it will helps to increase the efficiency of the extraction of dye. However, until certain percentage of the MWCNT the membrane capability to undergo extraction will be decrease. Regarding that, the optimal composition of the membrane including the MWCNT was as follows: 18 wt% of polyvinyl chloride as a based polymer, 51.0 wt% tetrahydrofuran as the solvent, 30 wt% of bis-(2-ethylhexyl) phosphate as the carrier 1 wt % of dioctyl phthalate as plasticizer, and 0.5 wt% of MWCNT as the nanoparticles. The method that applied in this study is fabrication using the casting machine, and dried membrane method. The obtain results that illustrated the study can be measured in the several analysis such as, Ftir, SEM, and Ion Exchange Capacity. The ion exchange capacity (IEC) shows the highest ion exchange capacity for membrane containing nanoparticles MWCNT with 0.5 wt% while increasing the percentage of nanoparticles, the lower the ion exchange capacity. This result closely related to the performance of the membrane during the extraction of MG dye, in which the percentage of extraction are effected, the extraction that take around 4 hours resulting the 0.5 wt% of nanoparticles membrane as the higher extraction 99.99% compared to 2.5 wt% of the nanoparticles membranes 96%. The effectiveness of this 0.5 wt% nanoparticles membrane is also tested with different initial concentration of MG dye solution which is 10 to 50 mg/L. This membrane are able to maintain the extraction of the MG solution with the percentage above 99% in all concentration which indicates that the composition of the 0.5 wt% MWCNT is still relevant even in the higher concentration of MG dye.