Liquid membrane component selection for removal of phenol from simulated aqueous waste solution

Abstract

Phenol is considered as one of the environmental pollutants in various industrial effluents that needs to be removed. One of the potential methods for the removal and recovery of phenol is the emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) process. In order to prepare astable and efficient emulsion liquid membrane, selecting the components of the membrane is crucial to the process development. This research was conducted to investigate the feasibility of palm oil as an organic solvent in liquid membrane (LM) formulation for phenol extraction and to study the effects of several parameters which affect the extraction and recovery performance of phenol using liquid-liquid extraction. The feasibility of palm oil was investigated by manipulating the organic solvent used, either palm oil or a mixture of palm oil and kerosene. Several parameters such as type of carrier, carrier concentration, type of stripping agent and stripping agent concentration were varied during LM component selection. The results showed that mixed palm oil and kerosene provides a high potential as an organic solvent for the extraction of phenol. About 71% of phenol was extracted at a palm oil to kerosene ratio of 70:30 and assisted with shorter time of phase separation between loaded organic and phenol feed phase. The addition of 0.1M of TBP (tributyl phosphate) as a carrier increased the extraction of phenol to 86% and prevented the third phase formation. Meanwhile, 2M of sodium hydroxide was able to act as a stripping agent to recover 81% of the phenol from the overall process. It can be concluded that palm oil has shown great potential in extracting phenol and could be applied in an ELM process as a green solvent for an emulsion liquid membrane process.