Abstract
Using membrane processes we studied the improvement of the treatment of waste emulsified by mineral oils and alkylphenolethoxylate (APE) and investigated diatomaceous earth processing for comparison. A quantitative analysis of the mineral oils and APE using column chromatography was applied to assess these processes. Despite substantial rejection of the turbidity values of emulsified model waste, the percentages of mineral oil and APE rejections using microfiltration (MF) processes were 39–61% and 16–19%, respectively. In contrast, the ultrafiltration (UF) process could reject 97% for the mineral oils and 90% for APE. The diatomaceous earth adsorption processes reduced the mineral oils 40–49% and the APE, 8–14%, and therefore were inferior to the UF process for waste treatment. The average fluxes of both the MF and UF membranes until the volume reduction factor (VRF) reached a value of 5 were almost the same in the range of 8×10 −6–14×10 −6 m 3 m −2 s −1. For commercial application, decrease in the permeate flux by fouling needs to be resolved.
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