Phenol removal from aqueous media by pertraction using vegetable oil as a liquid membrane

• This work deals with the removal of phenol from aqueous media.
• The process uses liquid membrane.
• The use of material is reduced: the liquid membrane is continuously regenerated.
• Vegetable oil is used as an alternative to hazardous conventional solvents.
• The process allows the concentration of phenol by semi-continuous pertraction.

The removal of phenol from aqueous media such as wastewater, using pertraction in rotating discs contactor is investigated. Preliminary equilibrium extraction study with several organic solvents show that vegetable oils (rapeseed and sunflower oils) can substitute classically volatile organic solvents used as phenol extracting agents. Rapeseed oil allows very efficient removal of phenol from acid aqueous solutions (feed phase) to basic aqueous solution (receiving phase) during batch pertraction studies. In order to optimize operating conditions, the influence of parameters, such as rotating discs speed and initial phenol concentration in the feed phase, on phenol mass transfer is studied. The transport rate of phenol increases with increasing the rotating discs speed. The increase of feed phase phenol concentration has not influence on its transport rate. Semi-continuous pertraction process allows the concentration of phenol.