Abstract
In this study, polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs) consisting of cellulose triacetate (CTA) as the base polymer, 2-nitrophenyl octyl ether as plasticizer, and tricaprylmethylammonium chloride (Aliquat 336) as carrier are used for removing the acid dye (red bordeaux acid and yellow erionyl) from aqueous solution. Extraction efficiency was studied under various experimental conditions, such as pH (2–9) of the aqueous solution, the concentration of extractant in the membrane (5–30 μmol/cm2), initial dye concentration (50–250 ppm), and the stirring speed (250–400 rpm). Under the optimized experimental conditions, 99% of dyes were extracted. The Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin isotherm models were used to study the equilibrium extraction data. The Langmuir equations have better regression coefficient (0.95, 0.95) than Freundlich (0.96, 0.904) and Temkin (0.873, 0.909) equation describing the acid dye extraction by the matrix CTA-Aliquat 336. The kinetic data were evaluated using pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order and intra-particle diffusion model. The kinetic study’s results indicate that the process of removing acid dye by PIMs is described by pseudo-second-order model.