The massive amounts of textile wastewater that are released into the ecosystem are causing growing alarm. Synthetic dyes used in the textile industry, like Congo red and Eriochrome Black T, are toxic and can have a negative impact on human health, plants, and marine life. Therefore, before discharge, it is crucial to remove or reduce these contaminants to a permissible level. For this, a variety of physical, chemical, and biological techniques have been used. Membrane separation, one of the available techniques, has promising potential to separate these risky dyes. However, the main problem that is causing the overall process efficiency to decline is membrane fouling brought on by molecules of organic dyes. Silane functionalized ZnO nanoparticles have been used to alter the properties of polyethersulfone membranes in order to solve this problem. The phase inversion method was used to prepare nanocomposite membranes. The ZnO NP content in the PES polymeric matrix was adjusted from 0 to 2 wt.% while various characterization tools were used to track changes in surface properties. This included FTIR, EDX, pore size and porosity, contact angle, and FESEM. The surface properties of the PES membrane were found to be significantly influenced by silane functionalized ZnO NPs, according to the results. In comparison to the control PES membrane, the top surface and cross-sectional morphologies were altered to a denser structure. Contact angle testing revealed that functionalized ZnO had improved the PES membrane's hydrophilicity from 67.5 to 47.9ᵒ for M0 and M4, on respect. Additionally, adding ZnO has roughly doubled the mean pore size from 2.3nm to 3.98nm. The separation potentials of the nanocomposites were barely impacted by this change in pore size. Similar to how the porosity gradually improved as the ZnO content of the casting solution increased. The final permeation and separation performance is a result of the ZnO nanocomposite membranes' surface characteristics being improved. The experimental work showed that 1.5 wt.% was the ideal ZnO NPs content. The pure water flux was increased significantly from 25 to 53 l/m2.h. The nanocomposite membranes showed promising antifouling properties while all membranes achieved high and comparable separation rates. These findings showed that nanocomposite membranes modified with ZnO may have a promising future in the treatment of wastewaters containing dyes, regardless of the composition.
