Recovery of fumaric acid by hollow-fiber supported liquid membrane with strip dispersion using trialkylamine carrier

This paper presents the transport of fumaric acid (FA) from an aqueous feed solution through a hollow-fiber supported liquid membrane (HFSLM) with strip dispersion. Trialkylamine (N7301) was used as carrier. Many factors having strong impacts on the extraction characteristics of the system were studied in detail, including the characteristics of feed and strip solutions, the composition of membrane solvent phase and the operating conditions. Membrane solvents were chosen from different chemical classes (four “inert” solvents: o-xylene, toluene, benzene, n-dodecane; and three “active” solvents or co-solvents: polar solvent n-octanol, electron donating solvent methyl isobutyl ketone-MIBK, and electron accepting solvent chloroform). And the Hansen solubility parameter theory was applied to analyze the influence of different solvents on the transport of fumaric acid. At the optimum operating condition, the extraction of FA reached 89.5% and the total TOC removal rate was 96.5%. FA crystal was obtained by acidification of the sodium fumarate solution. The total mass transfer coefficient was modeled and the modeling result agreed well with the experimental result. After five consecutive transport studies without reimpregnation of the carrier, the extraction remained fairly constant and no significant loss of the membrane solution was observed.