Micellar-enhanced ultrafiltration of soft drink wastewater using anionic and mixed anionic/nonionic surfactants

• Wastewater treatment of soft drink processing industry was investigated using MEUF.
• Effect of different parameters was evaluated on the MEUF performance.
• Flux was decreased by increasing SDS concentration and TX-100/SDS molar ratio.
• Increasing TX-100/SDS molar ratio increased the rejections of TDS and COD.

In the present study, micellar-enhanced ultrafiltration (MEUF) of soft drink processing wastewater using sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) surfactant and mixture of this surfactant with Triton X-100 (TX-100) surfactant is investigated. The experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of operating time, surfactant concentration, transmembrane pressure (TMP), and TX-100/SDS molar ratio on the process performance. The results show that the flux is decreased by increasing SDS concentration, TX-100/SDS molar ratio and operating time and decreasing TMP. Furthermore, increasing TX-100/SDS molar ratio increases the rejections of total dissolved solids (TDS) and chemical oxygen demand (COD).