Phenol Removal by Novel Choline Chloride Blended Cellulose Acetate-Fly Ash Composite Membrane

Abstract

A novel composite membrane (CM) was prepared by coating choline chloride (ChCl) blended cellulose acetate (CA) on fly-ash based ceramic substrate for phenol removal. Different amount (0-1 g) of ChCl was blended with CA to synthesize various CMs. Amount of ChCl in CA increases the contact angle, average pore radius, permeability of CM from 55.15° to 71.55°, 1.6 to 6.83 nm and 0.0057 to 0.0152 L·m⁻²·h⁻¹·kPa⁻¹, respectively. Phenol rejection increased from 56 to 93 % while increasing ChCl amount in CA. Phenol removal decreased from 94.26-64.23 % and 91.09-78.62 % with increase in applied pressure (69-483 kPa) and feed concentration (50-200 mg·L⁻¹). However, removal rate increased from 80.46-92.47 % with increase in pH 2-12. Among all CMs, CC5 is identified as best CM with maximum phenol removal efficiency (92.7 %) and flux (1.86 L·m⁻²·h⁻¹) at 207 kPa applied pressure and 100 mg·L⁻¹ of feed phenol concentration. The obtained results reveal that blending of 0.9 % ChCl with CA can significantly enhances the phenol removal efficiency and this could be used as potential CM for treatment of phenol bearing wastewater.