Advanced Membrane Technology for Textile
Wastewater Treatment
Mohd Hafiz Dzarfan Othman, Mohd Ridhwan Adam,
Roziana Kamaludin, Nurul Jannah Ismail, Mukhlis A. Rahman,
and Juhana Jaafar
Abstract
The utilization of membrane technology wastewater
treatment process has gained great attention in the
industrial practitioners worldwide. The conventional and
current treatment processes devoted in the textile wastewater treatment are discussed thoroughly throughout this
chapter. Additionally, the main converge of this chapter is
the application of the advanced membranes on textile
industries namely reverse osmosis, nanofiltration, ultrafiltration, microfiltration, electrodialysis, membrane
bioreactor and photocatalytic membrane. The advantages
and restrictions of these techniques are carefully
addressed in their respective subchapters. At the end of
this chapter, an attempt is also made to show the future
direction of the advanced membrane technology toward
the advance wastewater technology processes such as
membrane distillation, membrane contactor and many
others.
Keywords
Advanced membrane technology Á Textile wastewater Á
Treatment process
1 Introduction and History
Textile industries have been known as one of the largest
industrials that have grown rapidly, especially in the developing countries. The word textile was originated from the
Latin word ‘texere’ which means to weave. The gist of the
textile industries can be classified due to the types of textile
fibers it is working with. The different types of fibers that
categorized the industries are protein fibers which mainly
derived from animals, manmade fibers that normally synthesized, as well as cellulose-based either from natural
sources or regained. The sources of these fibers can be varied
such as plant sources of the cellulose-based fibers to produce
rayon, ramie, cotton, linen, lyocell, viscose and hemp. On
the other hand, fibers like wool, silk, cashmere, angora and
mohair are among the protein-based fibers which are normally obtained from the animal sources. Meanwhile, the
most used fibers due to the abundant source and mass production are the artificially synthesized manmade fibers
(polymer-based) including spandex, nylon, acrylic,
polypropylene, polyester, Ingeo and acetate. Figure 1 summarizes the type, source and example of the textile fibers
exist in this era. It is worth to be mentioning here that most
of the textiles were produced from the petrochemicals, wood
pulp and cotton liners. Apart from accommodate the primary
needs of humans (cloth and fashion), the textile industry
normally associated by the large volume and variability of
the wastewater generation.
Textile industrial wastewater has become as one of the
major pollution contributors to the water stream. This can be
attributed by the production process of the textiles that gets
chemically intensive due to the application of dye for coloring purpose. On that note, the textile industries have
generated massive quantities of chemical including dyes as
the form of wastewater during the manufacturing of the
textiles. The usage of the dyes can be varied depending on
the types of fibers used. For instance, the direct dye, reactive
dye, indigo dye and naphthol dye are more attracted to the
cellulose-based fibers. Meanwhile, the protein-based fibers
tend to react with the acid dye. The polymer-based of the
manmade fibers in other way have high affinity to basic,
direct and disperse dyes. Despite having an attractive feature
due to its pleasant appearance to the human eyes, these
highly colored materials could be highly disturbing the water
M. H. D. Othman (&) Á M. R. Adam Á R. Kamaludin Á N. J. Ismail Á
M. A. Rahman Á J. Jaafar
Advanced Membrane Technology Research Centre (AMTEC),
School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Faculty of
Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor
Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
e-mail: hafiz@petroleum.utm.my
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Z. Zhang et al. (eds.), Membrane Technology Enhancement for Environmental Protection
and Sustainable Industrial Growth, Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41295-1_7
91
Wastewater Treatment
Mohd Hafiz Dzarfan Othman, Mohd Ridhwan Adam,
Roziana Kamaludin, Nurul Jannah Ismail, Mukhlis A. Rahman,
and Juhana Jaafar
Abstract
The utilization of membrane technology wastewater
treatment process has gained great attention in the
industrial practitioners worldwide. The conventional and
current treatment processes devoted in the textile wastewater treatment are discussed thoroughly throughout this
chapter. Additionally, the main converge of this chapter is
the application of the advanced membranes on textile
industries namely reverse osmosis, nanofiltration, ultrafiltration, microfiltration, electrodialysis, membrane
bioreactor and photocatalytic membrane. The advantages
and restrictions of these techniques are carefully
addressed in their respective subchapters. At the end of
this chapter, an attempt is also made to show the future
direction of the advanced membrane technology toward
the advance wastewater technology processes such as
membrane distillation, membrane contactor and many
others.
Keywords
Advanced membrane technology Á Textile wastewater Á
Treatment process
1 Introduction and History
Textile industries have been known as one of the largest
industrials that have grown rapidly, especially in the developing countries. The word textile was originated from the
Latin word ‘texere’ which means to weave. The gist of the
textile industries can be classified due to the types of textile
fibers it is working with. The different types of fibers that
categorized the industries are protein fibers which mainly
derived from animals, manmade fibers that normally synthesized, as well as cellulose-based either from natural
sources or regained. The sources of these fibers can be varied
such as plant sources of the cellulose-based fibers to produce
rayon, ramie, cotton, linen, lyocell, viscose and hemp. On
the other hand, fibers like wool, silk, cashmere, angora and
mohair are among the protein-based fibers which are normally obtained from the animal sources. Meanwhile, the
most used fibers due to the abundant source and mass production are the artificially synthesized manmade fibers
(polymer-based) including spandex, nylon, acrylic,
polypropylene, polyester, Ingeo and acetate. Figure 1 summarizes the type, source and example of the textile fibers
exist in this era. It is worth to be mentioning here that most
of the textiles were produced from the petrochemicals, wood
pulp and cotton liners. Apart from accommodate the primary
needs of humans (cloth and fashion), the textile industry
normally associated by the large volume and variability of
the wastewater generation.
Textile industrial wastewater has become as one of the
major pollution contributors to the water stream. This can be
attributed by the production process of the textiles that gets
chemically intensive due to the application of dye for coloring purpose. On that note, the textile industries have
generated massive quantities of chemical including dyes as
the form of wastewater during the manufacturing of the
textiles. The usage of the dyes can be varied depending on
the types of fibers used. For instance, the direct dye, reactive
dye, indigo dye and naphthol dye are more attracted to the
cellulose-based fibers. Meanwhile, the protein-based fibers
tend to react with the acid dye. The polymer-based of the
manmade fibers in other way have high affinity to basic,
direct and disperse dyes. Despite having an attractive feature
due to its pleasant appearance to the human eyes, these
highly colored materials could be highly disturbing the water
M. H. D. Othman (&) Á M. R. Adam Á R. Kamaludin Á N. J. Ismail Á
M. A. Rahman Á J. Jaafar
Advanced Membrane Technology Research Centre (AMTEC),
School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Faculty of
Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor
Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
e-mail: hafiz@petroleum.utm.my
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Z. Zhang et al. (eds.), Membrane Technology Enhancement for Environmental Protection
and Sustainable Industrial Growth, Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41295-1_7
91