Abstract
The current work explores the treatment of dye wastewater using the combination of photocatalysis and ceramic nanofiltration process. Commercial ceramic membrane and titanium dioxide (TiO2) photocatalyst were used in this study to investigate the removal of Brilliant Green (BG) dye from the synthetic dye wastewater solution. The effect of various operating parameters on dye decolorization and total organic carbon removal were investigated. The operating parameters (pH, catalyst loading and time duration) were optimized using an experimental design model namely Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The use of experimental design by RSM resulted in the improvement of dye decolorization at optimum conditions. In addition to these operating parameters, the trend of initial dye concentration and the influence of catalyst loading on permeate flux was also studied. Around 99% of decolorization was obtained by the hybrid system at 500 mg L− 1 of dye concentration, 1 g L− 1 of TiO2 dosage, pH of 4.2 and 90 min. The integrated system i.e. photocatalytic reactor with nanofiltration membrane has shown complete removal of BG dye compared to individual systems. From the present study, it can be concluded that this integrated system is one of the efficient methods for dye treatment.