Comparison of membrane immobilized zero-valent iron nanoparticles for RED ME4BL azodye degradation

Textile industries are hailed as one of the major environmental polluters in the world, owing to their release of undesirable dye effluents. Synthetic dyes do not adhere to fabric firmly and are released into the aquatic ecosystem as effluent. Consequently, the consistent release of wastewater from numerous textile industries without previous treatment has detrimental effects on the ecosystem and human health. Treatment methods currently being used fail to degrade the dye effluents and have their own shortcomings. Immobilized nanoparticles have been extensively studied for dye remediation because of their many advantages over conventional methods. The present study aimed to compare the efficiency of two different carrier matrices [namely Poly(vinylidene fluoride) and Polyurethane] for iron nanoparticle and their decolorization activity on an azo dye (RED ME4BL). Scanning Electron Microscopy was carried out to show the deposition of iron nanoparticles on the membrane. The reaction kinetics of the bare nanoparticles were compared with that of the immobilized nanoparticles, and all were found to follow pseudo-second-order kinetics. Polyurethane immobilized iron nanoparticles showed a significant degradation of RED ME4bl than the Poly(vinylidene fluoride) immobilized iron and bare nanoparticles. This paper also demonstrates a relatively newer method for nanoparticle immobilisation using the synthetic polyurethane form.