Industrial textile wastewater treatment using Neolamarckia cadamba NFC filter paper via cross-flow filtration system

This study investigated the potential use of Neolamarckia cadamba as nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) filter paper for treating industrial textile wastewater via the cross-flow filtration system. Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to optimize the system and create a predictive model to evaluate the performance of the NFC filter paper. Experimental results from the central composite design (CCD) showed that a high value of colour removal efficiency of 90.56 % and an optimum value of normalized flux of 0.7397 were achieved at pH 6.5 with 100 % of initial feed concentration of the textile wastewater and 60:40 cellulose dosage ratio of the NFC filter paper. Optimisation and verification experiments were conducted under the optimal conditions determined. The formation of a cake layer in the two stages of the membrane fouling mechanism under the optimum operational condition was revealed using model fitting according to Wiesner and Aptel equations and confirmed via Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) analyses. Water quality in terms of colour, pH, chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and turbidity was monitored to determine if the treated wastewater met the discharge limits. The findings of this study demonstrated the potential of using the NFC filter paper for industrial textile wastewater treatment and provided valuable insights for optimising the operating parameters of filter papers. [Display omitted] •The fabrication of NFC filter paper from a plantation forest resource, Neolamarckia cadamba.•Cross-flow filtration system as a medium for NFC filter paper of textile wastewater treatment•NFC filter paper can eliminate pollutants from textile wastewater.•Cake formation model confirmed by the membrane fouling mechanism.•RSM is a powerful tool to optimize operational parameters for textile wastewater treatment.