Surface modification of polypropylene nonwoven with chitosan, TiO2, and Ag nanoparticles for the removal of acid dye from water

In this study, polypropylene nonwoven was coated with chitosan after being activated by oxygen/argon low-pressure plasma. The chitosan-treated sample (PP-Ch) was coated with TiO2 nanoparticles by a pad-dry method. Silver nanoparticles were in situ synthe-sized on the chitosan-TiO2-coated sample by a chemical reduction method. The morphology of each of the samples mentioned above was evaluated by FESEM. The efficiency of each sample in the removal of C.I. Acid Brown 248 from aqueous media was evaluated. The PP-Ch sample removed 90% of the dye at pH=3. Coating the PP-Ch sample with TiO(2 )and silver nanoparticles improved the dye removal efficiency under UV irradiation.