Fabrication and characterisation of Polyvinylidene Fluoride Co-Hexafluoropropylene (PVDF-Co-HFP) Polymer Inclusion Membranes (PIMs) for Reactive Orange 16 (RO16) dye removal

By implementing green technology, polymer inclusion membrane (PIMs) was used as an extractant for the removal of Reactive Orange 16 (RO16) dye as it is an easy and effective way. The extraction process is used because it is found to be more economical and effective compared to other dye removal methods. The PIM consists of Polyvinylidene Fluoride Co-HFP (PVDF-Co-HFP) as a base polymer, Aliquat 336 as a carrier and also act as a plasticizer too with the solvent of Tetrahydrofuran (THF).The formulation of the components were varied to determine the optimum composition of membrane with the effective extraction ability. The PIMs were characterised by Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Ion exchange capacity (IEC), water uptake, contact angle (CA) and Universal Testing Machine (UTM) methods used to determine the physical and chemical stability of the PIMs. Various parameters such as effect of carrier, initial dye concentration and pH were investigated. The optimum extraction of RO16 dye using PIMs were found to be at composition M3, 9 % of carrier which is worked best on 10 mg/L initial dye concentration in 4 hour time at pH 2 with agitation speed of 500 rpm at room temperature. Kinetic modelling was studied to analyse the extraction process and removal of dye by using the pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order. The kinetic model fits very well with the kinetic data using pseudo-second-order. The highest percentage removal of RO16 dye was found at 99.62 % and it is proven that PIMs has the potential to remove the dye.