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Highly efficient removal of microplastics and dyes from textile effluents using electro modified polyester waste membranes
Summary
Scientists turned old plastic water bottles into a special filter that can pull both dyes and tiny plastic particles out of wastewater from clothing factories — the same wastewater that often ends up polluting rivers and eventually our drinking water and food supply. The filter stayed effective even after being reused multiple times, showing it could offer a practical, waste-reducing way to keep harmful dyes and microplastics out of the water we depend on.
The release of dye effluent wastewater carrying persistent organic dyes and microplastics is one of the greatest threats to the aquatic environment and human health; hence, there is an urgent need to develop sustainable methods for treating textile effluents. In this study, an innovative double function electro modified polyester waste membrane (EMPWM) was designed for the sustainable treatment of textile effluents by removing both dyes and microplastics through an integrated one-step electro oxidation method. It was found from the results of SEM, FTIR, and Zeta potential that the electro modified process was successful in creating functional groups containing oxygen on the membrane, making the membrane surface more hydrophilic (−31.4 mV at pH 7). In addition to this, the membrane showed a high degree of flux stability with more than 90% efficiency being retained after five repeated filtration runs, which is indicative of its strong anti-fouling capability. It can thus be concluded from the above discussion that the conversion of discarded polyester material into an efficient membrane can prove to be a win-win strategy by dealing with plastic waste as well as industrial effluents.