Facile Surface Modification of Glass-Fiber Membrane with Silylating Reagent through Chemical Bonding for the Selective Separation and Recycling of Diverse Dyes from Aqueous Solutions

3-(Trimethoxysilyl)-1-propanamine (APTMS) modified glass fiber membrane (APTMS-GF) was prepared via chemical bonding with different volume ratios (APTMS : methanol=1:20, 1:10, 1:5), which was called APTMS-GF-1, -2 and -3, respectively. For congo red (CR) with the concentrations ranging from 5 to 45 mg L-1, the removal efficiencies were up to above 95% by filtration with APTMS-GF composite membranes, but there was no distinct difference in removal capacity with increasing the volume ratio of APTMS. More importantly, on account of the electrostatic interaction, APTMS-GF composite membrane could selectively separate and recycle neutral bromophenol blue (BPB), cationic methylene blue (MB) and anionic methyl orange (MO) from binary systems including BPB/CR, MB/CR, and MO/CR, respectively. Under the static adsorption, the adsorption process of CR on the APTMS-GF composite membrane was better fitting with the pseudo-second-order kinetic model (R-2=0.992) due to the electrostatic interaction, which was confirmed by the effects of inorganic ions and pH in solution. The structural advantage of glass fiber membrane with micropores made all of filtration fulfilled under atmospheric pressure in comparison to the reported membranes. As a result, this work provides a feasible method for fabricating the economic membrane in removing dyes.