Preparation, characterization and application of powdered activated carbon-cellulose acetate phthalate mixed matrix membrane for treatment of steel plant effluent

Preparation, characterization and industrial application of a mixed matrix membrane (MMM) using powdered activated carbon (PAC) in cellulose acetate phthalate (CAP) have been reported in this study. The objective of this work is to fabricate a less energy intensive, highly selective (to phenolic compounds) adsorptive membrane with high throughput in a scalable platform for simultaneous removal of organic as well chemical oxygen demand (COD) from a steel plant effluent. The membrane with 25wt% PAC has maximum adsorption capacity of phenol 35mg/g at pH5.5. Effluent with total phenolic compounds (23mg/g) and COD of 5200mg/l is treated in continuous cross-flow configuration. Breakthrough time is 44hr for a filtration area of 0.008m(2) with total phenol concentration in permeate as per World Health Organization (WHO), 1mg/l. Throughput of the system is high, 40l/m(2)hr at transmembrane pressure drop 276kPa and cross-flow rate 20l/hr. Maximum rejection of phenol is obtained at low pressure and cross-flow rate. Removal of phenolic compounds is achieved by adsorption by PAC in CAP matrix and satisfactory reduction of COD and complete removal of non-volatile solids are due of sieving mechanism. A simple chemical regeneration method is proposed to recover the permeate flux beyond 90%. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.