Removal of Phenols from Wastewater Using Liquid Membranes in a Microporous Hollow-Fiber-Membrane Extractor

This paper reports experimental data on the removal of phenol from aqueous solutions using emulsion liquid membranes in a microporous hollow-fiber extractor. The hollow-fiber extractor appears to offer significant advantages over conventional liquid-liquid contactors for this separation because emulsion leakage and swell are practically eliminated even when treating high phenolic feeds. The overall mass-transfer coefficients are seen to be more strongly dependent on the phase flow rates among the parameters studied. The experimental mass-transfer coefficients have been predicted by a resistance-in-series model