Separation of mercury(II) from petroleum produced water via hollow fiber supported liquid membrane and mass transfer modeling

• HFSLM can successfully extract and strip mercury ions from petroleum produced water.
• A high percentage of extraction was obtained reaching 99.73%.
• A high percentage of stripping was obtained reaching 90.11%.
• The mathematical model for separation was based on the conservation of mass.
• Average deviation for feed and stripping predictions were 1.5% and 1.8%.

The separation of mercury(II) from petroleum-produced water from the Gulf of Thailand was carried out using a hollow fiber supported liquid membrane system (HFSLM). Optimum parameters for feed pretreatment were 0.2 M HCl, 4% (v/v) Aliquat 336 for extractant and 0.1 M thiourea for stripping solution. The best percentage obtained for extraction was 99.73% and for recovery 90.11%, respectively. The overall separation efficiency noted was 94.92% taking account of both extraction and recovery prospects. The model for this separation developed along a combined flux principle i.e. convection–diffusion–kinetic. The results showed excellent agreement with theoretical data at an average standard deviation of 1.5% and 1.8%, respectively.

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