Removal of Phenol from Wastewater by Supported Liquid Membrane Process

Phenol is considered a pollutant in the environment due to its toxicity and carcinogenic effect. Supported liquid membrane (SLM) is a good and promising technology for the removal of phenol from wastewater because it provides maximum driving force for the separation of targeted solute and simultaneous extraction and stripping process which lead to excellent separation. In this research, kerosene and palm oil liquid membranes were used as liquid membrane phase, aqueous phenol as the feed phase and aqueous sodium hydroxide as the stripping phase. Several factors such as feed phase pH, feed phase flow rate and concentration of stripping phase were studied. The results show that the best extraction performance can achieve 35% at pH 4 of feed phase, 150 ml/min feed flow rate and 1.0 M of stripping phase concentration. The result was used to determine the probability of using palm oil as a liquid membrane. In the determination of the potential of using palm oil as the membrane phase, the results show that an equal portion of palm oil and kerosene mixture performed the best extraction with 43% efficiency.