Fabrication and adsorption characteristics of cuprammonium cellulose-based membranes for removing anionic and cationic dyes

A cotton linter-based source was used to form conjugate electrospun membranes composed of cuprammonium cellulose, polyethylene oxide, and polyacrylonitrile for the removal of the anionic and cationic dyes from aqueous media. The highest removal efficiencies of 94 %, 89.9 %, 87.4 % were achieved for the anionic dyes Congo red (CR), Metanil yellow (MY), and Methyl orange (MO), respectively, and less so on the cationic dyes Crystal violet (CV), and Rhodamine B (RB) were 55.8 % and 15.1 %, respectively. The pseudo-second-order model effectively described the adsorption kinetics for both types of dyes. The composite membrane exhibited adsorption behaviors following the Dubinin-Radushkevich (D-R) isothermal model. Thermodynamics study suggests that the adsorption process was spontaneous except for the RB dye. The activation energy values of CR, MY, MO, CV, and RB dyes were 27.65, 21.17, 11.50, 10.47, and 71.12 kJ/mol, respectively, confirming the physisorption phenomenon for CR, MY, MO, and CV dyes, while chemisorption occurs for RB dyes. This study investigates the potential of a conjugate electrospun membranes as a reusable adsorbent for dye removal. The effects of solution pH, temperature, and dye concentration on adsorption performance were systematically evaluated. The conjugate electrospun membrane efficiency declined by only 10 % after undergoing five adsorption/desorption cycles.