Study on stable mass transfer and enrichment of phenol by 1-octanol/kerosene/polyvinyl chloride polymer inclusion membrane

Abstract

A polymer inclusion membrane (PIM) that contains a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) polymer matrix and 1-octanol (OCT) as specific carrier (PO-PIM) was prepared to investigate the mass transfer behaviour of phenol in aqueous solutions. Results showed that the mass transfer behaviour of the PO-PIM for phenol conformed to the first-order kinetics. In addition, the mass transfer efficiency for phenol reached the maximum when the OCT content was 82.8 wt%. The mass transfer activation energy (Ea) was 14.46 kJ mol−1, which indicated that intramembranous diffusion was the main controlling factor in the mass transfer process. The introduction of hydrophobic additives, such as kerosene, liquid paraffin and vegetable oil, into the PO-PIM could remarkably improve its stability. In an aqueous solutions of phenol ranging from 0 mg L−1 to 9000 mg L−1, the initial flux (J0) of kerosene/PVC/OCT-PIM (KPO-PIM) was positively correlated with the initial concentration of phenol. For a stripping solution with a feed solution pH of 2.0 and a sodium hydroxide concentration of 0.1 mol L−1, the maximum permeability coefficient during stable mass transfer reached 12.55 μm s−1. At a mass transfer area of 3.14 cm2, an enrichment factor (EF) of 3.5 for 200 mg L−1 of phenolic aqueous solution was achieved within 48 h through KPO-PIM.