Surfactants role in the enhancement of the treatment efficiency of the dyeing effluents with combination of membrane processes

Abstract

The industrial process of reactive dyeing of cotton is a sequence of several operations. Different types of surfactants were used several times during the dyeing process; anionic, nonionic, and cationic. The dyeing effluent is heavily charged with pollution especially color and salt. In a treatment at source approach, the dyeing effluent was isolated and then mixed with the other baths containing surfactants. A combined treatment involving microfiltration (MF), as pretreatment followed by nanofiltration (NF) as mean treatment, was investigated. The mixing of the dyeing bath with another effluent showed 100% of MF flux improvement, but the color retention still higher for the single dyeing bath. The NF treatment produces a completely discolored effluent with 100% of suspended solids retention, while the chlorides removal did not exceed 50%.

Keywords:

• Reactive dye
• Surfactants
• Microfiltration
• Nanofiltration
• Color removal
• Chlorides retention