Abstract
The study attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of ion exchange process in cationic surfactant (benzalkonium chloride, BAC) removal from model solutions. Four commercial cation-exchange resins were chosen for the batch tests in four doses (2.5–20 mL L-1). The experiments included evaluation of the following parameters on ion exchange efficiency: resin characteristics and dose, presence of inorganic salt and pH of treated solution. The ion exchange process was found to be very effective in cationic surfactant removal – two of tested resins allowed to remove up to 80% of contaminant after contact time of 40 minutes, the last two – after 60 minutes of mixing in all range of doses. The presence of electrolyte neither pH change has no essential effect on surfactant removal efficiency. The analysis of the ion exchange isotherms showed that the strongly-acidic macroporous resin C150 H was characterized by the highest BAC ion exchange capacity (153.8 mg mL-1), while the weakly-acidic gel resin C104 showed the best affinity of the exchanged ions to the resin matrix.
Highlights
In the 21st century the fresh water deficiency become a significant problem
Taking into account the ionic character of surfactants, it was found that the ion exchange process may be a suitable method for surfactants removal [17], ion exchange resins may be more effective in surfactants removal than conventional adsorbents
The classical approach of the linear-form of Langmuir model was analyzed: Ce = 1 + Ce qe qmaxKL qmax where: qe – equilibrium amount of benzalkonium chloride (BAC) exchanged on a resin volume of 1 mL calculated from the following equation: qe where: Ci – initial BAC concentration, Ce – equilibrium BAC concentration, V (L) – solution volume, VJ – resin volume, qmax – maximum uptake of BAC exchanged on a resin volume of 1 mL, KL (L mg-1) – Langmuir constant
Summary
In the 21st century the fresh water deficiency become a significant problem. Progressive urban and industrial development leads to large water demand. Some anthropological contaminants like surfactants may be difficult to remove from wastewater in conventional methods. Surfactants are a group of organic compounds consisting of hydrophilic heads and hydrophobic tails. They have been widely used as detergents, wetting agents, emulsifiers, foaming agents as well as dispersants [2]. Depending on hydrophilic part dissociating ion, surfactants are classified into four groups: anionic, cationic, non-ionic and zwitterionic. Quaternary ammonium salts such as benzalkonium chloride (BAC) are the major and most abundant contributing cationic surfactant constituents. Schuricht et al [17] compared removal efficiency of perfluorinated surfactants from wastewater by adsorption on activated carbon and ion exchange with the use of anion exchange resins. Schouten et al [18] reported anion exchanger IRA-900 capacity versus anionic surfactant linear alkyl benzene sulfonate (LAS) equal to 3.7 mmol LAS/g dry resin which is relatively high and close to the specified ion exchange capacity of 4.2 meq/g dry resin
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