The Comparison of UV Irradiation, Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Combined UV/RO Systems for Phenol Removal

Recently, some membrane separation technologies for phenol removal had been investigated. Reverse osmosis is one of the rejection method that because of simple operation and also low initial cost, evaluation of phenol removal percentage by this method can be intresting. Ultra violet (UV) degradation is the other efficient method when combined with other methods, can be increased the phenol removal by molecular degradation of phenol. In this paper, using of UV degradation and reverse osmosis (RO) membrane methods for treatment of phenol have been investigated. Two methods were combined and results have been compared together.The rate of UV degradation of phenol is very low and using of it without any additive or reaction accelerator, seems not be usefulSo for saving of time and low volume of feed tank, and for high phenol removal, it is necessary to use combination of it with other methods. UV decomposition of 100ppm phenol solution with pH= 3, 5, 7 or 9 were evaluated. Results Showed that for UV system, phenol degradation at pH=5 is higher than other pH. Rejection of phenol in reverse osmosis (RO) with pH=3, 5, and7 for two pump pressures (50 and 70 psi) had been tested, too. Direct photolysis of phenol with 6-W UV-C alone leads 17% removal percentage and using of RO alone showed 20% rejection after 60min for 100ppm phenol solution. For increase of phenol removal, UV and RO systems combined. Finally, about 58% of phenol is degraded within 180 min when RO added to UV system (UV/RO). At the end, for this combined system effect of concentration and pressure pumping for reverse osmosis rejection evaluated and these three systems for same conditions have been compared together

کلیدواژه ها:

Phenol ، Ultra Violet (UV) ، Reverse Osmosis (RO) ، Membrane Processes ، Wastewater Treatment