Comparison Study Performance Between the Photocatalytic Process and Membrane Filtration for Oily Wastewater Treatment

Eman H. Khader; Thamer J. Mohammed; Talib M. Albayati; Mahdi S. Mahdi

doi:10.52716/jprs.v16i1.1068

Authors

Eman H. Khader Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Technology, Iraq.
Thamer J. Mohammed Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Technology, Iraq.
Talib M. Albayati Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Technology, Iraq.
Mahdi S. Mahdi Oil Production Department, Missan Oil Company, Ministry of Oil, Iraq.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52716/jprs.v16i1.1068

Keywords:

Eco-friendly, Oily wastewater, PAN, Photocatalytic, Ultrafiltration membrane.

Abstract

In this work, a comparison of performance between the photocatalytic process and ultrafiltration membrane was investigated for removing oil from oily wastewater. The eco-friendly calcium oxide (CaO) was prepared from tomato plant waste as a photocatalyst, and the membrane was prepared from polyacrylonitrile (PAN). The DLS and EDX analyses of the prepared photocatalyst were investigated, and it was noted that the photocatalyst is nanosized and belongs to the type CaO. The contact angle of the PAN membrane was measured, and it was about 68.53°. The impact of the amount of CaO (0–0.35 g/L) and irradiation time (15–150 min) on oil photocatalytic activity was tested, as well as transmembrane pressure (1–3 bar) and operation time (15–60 min) on the removal of oil and flux of water and oily wastewater by the PAN ultrafiltration membrane. The findings demonstrated that when the amount of CaO and irradiation time increase, the oil removal increases, but it slightly decreases as the transmembrane pressure increases, while the permeability of the PAN membrane rises when transmembrane pressure rises and declines as operation time rises. The findings illustrated that the maximum oil removal efficiency (92.19%) was obtained by ultrafiltration membrane compared to the photocatalytic process (80.93%) at optimum conditions (CaO = 0.25 g, irradiation time = 2 hr, transmembrane pressure = 1 bar).

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