Novel mixed-matrix-membrane with activated carbon for steel-industry effluent treatment

摘要

1. Introduction Waste wàter effluents from various iron and steel industries contain a lot of harmful chemicals. Especially the by-products from coke-oven plant contain phenols, which is very toxic and carcinogenic [1, 2]. This group of compounds is in the 11~(th) position out of 126 chemicals, which are termed as priority pollutants by United States Environmental Protection Agency. Exposure to phenol has many bad effects like high irritation to eyes, skin and mucous and also causes headache and dizziness. Long term exposure can even result in high blood pressure, liver and kidney damage. Present technologies applied for removal of phenolic compounds are solvent extraction, adsorption, chemical oxidation, biological treatment and distillation [3-7]. However, the need for cost-effective, simple and high throughput technology still persists. It has been found that, activated carbon is very good adsorbent of phenolic compounds [8]. But, this process is slow and less economic. On the other hand, membrane separation technology is a physical separation process with high throughput and it is also external chemical free. Mixed matrix membrane combines the goodness of adsorptive property of inorganic additives and simplicity of membrane technology. Mixed matrix membrane of some base polymer and activated carbon can cater to the need of phenol removal technology. In this work, one flat sheet mixed membrane of cellulose acetate phthalate (CAP) and powdered activated carbon (PAC) has been fabricated. Various properties of this membrane are compared with the undoped CAP membrane.