Simultaneous elimination of dissolved and dispersed pollutants from cutting oil wastes using two aqueous phase extraction methods

Abstract

Oily wastewater experimental study has been accomplished using two aqueous phases extraction methods on the basis of phase separation properties of non-ionic surfactants above the so-called cloud point curve and the solubilization phenomena of coacervate micelles (surfactant rich phase). Two commercial ethoxylate fatty alcohol surfactants (Oxo-C(10)E(3), Oxo-C(15)E(7)) were employed to treat three kinds of cutting oil wastewater, in order to define the conditions promoting cutting oils emulsions destabilization and cloud point extraction possesses simultaneously. Before extraction test, the phase diagrams of binary water/surfactants systems were drawn and the effect of some cutting oil additives on water-surfactant systems was, therefore studied. The results of oily wastewater extraction with respect to wt.% surfactant and temperature were expressed in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the dilute phase before and after extraction, residual chemical oxygen demand (COD(R)), residual concentrations of surfactant in the dilute phase (X(t,w)) converted to chemical oxygen demand (COD(T)) and the volume fraction of coacervate (phi(c)) at the equilibrium. The results obtained for each parameter which were also represented on three dimensional diagrams using an empirical smoothing method were in agreement with the experimental ones, where the COD(R) was reduced from 55 to 1.1 g O(2)l(-1).