Activated Carbon to Improve the Performance of Membrane Processes for the Extraction and Elimination of Methylene Blue Pollutant

Abstract

In the last few years, membrane technologies have experienced a considerable growth, due to their numerous uses and their advantages over other conventional techniques. The membrane processes present today an important research topic, especially affinity polymer membranes, very adapted to oriented processes. Methylene blue is one of the most widely used dyes in various fields such as chemistry, medicine, dentistry and the dye industry. Our objective is to develop a polymeric inclusion membrane for methylene blue extraction and recovery processes, assisted by activated carbon. We developed a membrane based on a mixed polymer support, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), and the amphiphilic molecule Tween 20 (TW20) as extractive agent (EA). In order to quantify the performance of developed membrane, macroscopic parameters such as initial flux J 0 , and permeability P, as well as microscopic parameters such as association constant K ass , and diffusion apparent coefficient D*, were determined. Then, we determined the activation parameters, energy (E a ), enthalpy (ΔH # ass ), and entropy (ΔS # ). Finally, we studied the effect of activated carbon on the evolution of processes carried out and the performance of the membrane, and we observe a very clear improvement. The obtained results indicate that the membrane developed for the studied processes has a real potential for the techniques of separation and pre concentration.