Extraction of Arsenic(V) from Water Using Emulsion Liquid Membrane

A Review on Promising Membrane Technology Approaches for Heavy Metal Removal from Water and Wastewater to Solve Water Crisis

Due to the impacts of water scarcity, the world is looking at all possible solutions for decreasing the over-exploitation of finite freshwater resources. Wastewater is one of the most reliable and accessible water supplies. As the population expands, so do industrial, agricultural, and household operations in order to meet man’s enormous demands. These operations generate huge amounts of wastewater, which may be recovered and used for a variety of reasons. Conventional wastewater treatment techniques have had some success in treating effluents for discharge throughout the years. However, advances in wastewater treatment techniques are required to make treated wastewater suitable for industrial, agricultural, and household use. Diverse techniques for removing heavy metal ions from various water and wastewater sources have been described. These treatments can be categorized as adsorption, membrane, chemical, or electric. Membrane technology has been developed as a popular alternative for recovering and reusing water from various water and wastewater sources. This study integrates useful membrane technology techniques for water and wastewater treatment containing heavy metals, with the objective of establishing a low-cost, high-efficiency method as well as ideal production conditions: low-cost, high-efficiency selective membranes, and maximum flexibility and selectivity. Future studies should concentrate on eco-friendly, cost-effective, and long-term materials and procedures.

Arsenic removal by liquid membranes

Water contamination with harmful arsenic compounds represents one of the most serious calamities of the last two centuries. Natural occurrence of the toxic metal has been revealed recently for 21 countries worldwide; the risk of arsenic intoxication is particularly high in Bangladesh and India but recently also Europe is facing similar problem. Liquid membranes (LMs) look like a promising alternative to the existing removal processes, showing numerous advantages in terms of energy consumption, efficiency, selectivity, and operational costs. The development of different LM configurations has been a matter of investigation by several researching groups, especially for the removal of As(III) and As(V) from aqueous solutions. Most of these LM systems are based on the use of phosphine oxides as carriers, when the metal removal is from sulfuric acid media. Particularly promising for water treatment is the hollow fiber supported liquid membrane (HFSLM) configuration, which offers high selectivity, easy transport of the targeted metal ions, large surface area, and non-stop flow process. The choice of organic extractant(s) plays an essential role in the efficiency of the arsenic removal. Emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) systems have not been extensively investigated so far, although encouraging results have started to appear in the literature. For such LM configuration, the most relevant step toward efficiency is the choice of the surfactant type and its concentration.

Ultrasound assisted preparation of water in oil emulsions and their application in arsenic (V) removal from water in an emulsion liquid membrane process

Water in oil emulsions are prepared by using an ultra-sonication device and used in an emulsion liquid membrane process in order to recover arsenic (V) ions from an aqueous medium. The aim of this work is the investigation of the effect of emulsifier concentration and composition, and also sonication time on the emulsion droplet size and the extraction efficiency in order to obtain stable emulsions with small droplets that favor the extraction. Results show that ultrasonic waves reduce internal droplet size which enhances the extraction of arsenic. In addition, internal droplet size is decreased initially and then increased by increasing Span 80 concentration. On the other hand, by increasing Span 80 concentration, extraction amount is increased and then decreased. Furthermore, emulsifier blends provide more stability for the emulsion. Increasing concentration of Tween 20 as a hydrophilic emulsifier up to an optimum concentration decreases internal droplet size and increases extraction amount. By increasing sonication time up to 4 min, the internal droplet size is decreased and the extraction amount is increased. If sonication time is increased further, the internal droplet size is increased and the extraction amount is decreased.