Effect of Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS) on Polysulfone/Zeolite membrane for the removal of copper ions

Abstract

The influence of anionic surfactant, Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS) on Polysulfone (PSf) polymer impregnated with zeolite adsorbent for removing copper ions from aqueous solution is the main focus of this paper. The flat sheet membrane was prepared via blending and phase inversion methods. Different amount of SDS (1 wt%, 3 wt%, 5 wt%, and 7 wt%) were added into the polymer casting solution. Batch adsorption and continuous filtration studies were carried out to study the effect of SDS dosage on PSf/zeolite membrane for the removal of copper ion. The membrane characterizations such as pure water flux (PWF), water contact angle (WCA) and mean pore size were investigated. From the study, it was found that the presence of a high amount of SDS could enhance adsorption efficiency (99 %) by shortening the equilibrium time with adsorption of 9.4 mg/g. Filtration study indicates that a lower amount of SDS (1 wt%) results in high rejection value (70 %) of copper metal ions from the solution. Besides, as the amount of SDS increase, the PWF increases from 0 L/m2h to 100 L/m2h, WCA decreases from 94.8° to 46.4° and the pore size of membrane increases from 0.082 μm to 2.530 μm.