Separation of Phenol and Toluene from Aqueous Solutions by Micellar-enhanced Ultrafiltration using Cetylpyridinium Chloride

Abstract

The feasibility of micellar-enhanced ultrafiltration (MEUF) for separation of volatile organiccompound (VOC) was investigated. Cationic surfactant, cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) was used forthe formation of micelles. The VOCs selected were an ionic compound (phenol) and a non-ioniccompound (toluene). The experiments were carried out by a flat sheet UF module using celluloseacetate membrane with MWCO 10,000. MEUF experiments were divided into two systems: singleorganic-CPC and binary organics-CPC systems.

The results showed that flux increased with increasing applied pressure and flow rate for singleorganic-CPC system, but the presence of CPC reduced flux in both phenol-CPC and toluene-CPCsystem. The rejections of phenol and toluene (70 to 99%) in phenol-CPC as well as toluene-CPCsystem were observed to increase with increasing CPC concentration. In phenol-toluene-CPC system,it appeared that flux decreased with increasing CPC concentration, but the rejection of phenol wasincreased by the presence of toluene while the rejection of toluene was not affected by phenol.

The extent of solubilization decreased with an increasing concentration of both phenol andtoluene. Solubilization of toluene in CPC micelles was more than that of phenol, therefore, toluenerejection was higher than phenol rejection.

Keywords : Micellar-Enhanced Ultrafiltration / Phenol / Toluene / Cetylpyridinium Chloride /Solubilization