Zinc oxide-halloysite composites introduced poly (vinylidene fluoride) hollow fiber membranes for textile wastewater treatment

Removal of hazardous dyes from textile wastewater is essential due to their toxicity. In this research, zinc oxide-halloysite (ZnO-HNTs) composite was prepared by in situ synthesis, and then introduced into polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) spinning solution. This spinning solution was fabricated into hollow fiber membranes (HFM) via the non-solvent-in-phase transformation technique. The prepared HFMs were analyzed for morphology, chemical structure, and separation performance. The results showed that the ZnO-HNTs composites introduced PVDF HFMs had good performance, with a minimum water contact angle of 42.1°, and a maximum permeate flux of 248 L/m2h. The membranes had good retention performance for various dyes and emulsified oils in water. The dye rejection and the flux recovery ratios of the prepared membranes have reached 90.6% and 85.6%, respectively. Moreover, the introduction of ZnO-HNTs composite can optimize the anti-pollution performance of PVDF HFMs and make them suitable for treating textile wastewater.