The application of membrane filtration process for the reduction of laundry waste contaminants: Performance and antifouling properties of chitosan modified PVDF

The laundry liquid waste treatment has been carried out using a membrane filtration method. PVDF membrane was modified with chitosan as an additive and made by phase inversion technique. The performance of the membrane was tested against pure water flux and removal of COD and BOD compounds in laundry waste. COD and BOD are parameters that indicate the presence of organic pollutants in laundry waste. The research results show that pure water flux, BOD and COD fluxes of modified PVDF membrane increased compared to pure PVDF membrane. The selectivity of the modified membrane decreased slightly due its porosity is more porous than pure membrane. The modified membrane was able to reduce 61.45 % COD and 82.56 % for BOD. This value is lower than the pure PVDF value, which gives a percent removal of 68 % for BOD and 89.54% for COD. The antifouling properties were tested by measuring the Fouling Recovery Ratio (FRR). The FRR value of the modified membrane is higher than of the pure PVDF membrane, that was 97.62% and 84,3%, respectively.