Extractant Impregnated Hollow Fiber Membranes for Phenol Recovery from Wastewater

Abstract

Phenol has been used as the model pollutant. Hollow Fiber Partitioning Reactor is the most popular technique to treat phenolic wastewater currently, but it has certain drawbacks like long term instability and use of hazardous solvents. To obviate the instability issue and minimize the use of solvent, solid extractant, Trioctylphosphine Oxide (TOPO) was impregnated inside membrane pores so that they act as adsorbent. In this research, an effort has been made to uniformly distribute TOPO within the membrane thickness so that that hollow fibers can be utilized for simultaneous extraction and recovery. After the immobilization of TOPO was done, fiber properties were characterized using weight gain, SEM images and permeability tests. A kinetic analysis of the simultaneous operation was also carried out to determine the step-wise resistance offered and the rate controlling resistance. Finally this system was mathematically modeled for prediction of performance under varying conditions.