Chlorpheniramine recovery from aqueous solutions by emulsion liquid membranes using soy lecithin as carrier

[Display omitted] •A recovery system of chlorpheniramine by Emulsion Liquid Membranes is proposed.•Soy lecithin is a good carrier to perform the transfer of CPM through the ELM.•The system composed of Abil EM90®, soy lecithin and HCl turned out be efficient.•High recovery percentages of CPM and fast transfer rate were obtained.•This application of ELM is a contribution to wastewater treatment. Emulsion liquid membranes (ELMs) are a versatile and useful alternative for the recovery of emerging organic pollutants, such as pharmaceuticals, contained in wastewaters. These substances recently have provoked an environmental concern because of their growing detection in wastewater. In this study a methodology for CPM recovery from aqueous solutions by emulsion liquid membranes was developed, using non-toxic, natural products. The organic phase was composed of the diluents Parleam 4 or dodecane, the surfactant Abil EM 90® and the carrier soy lecithin (SL). The internal aqueous phase (stripping phase) was composed of HCl. The results show that emulsions prepared with Parleam 4 or dodecane+soy lecithin at 3% w/V+Abil EM 90® at 5% w/V as the organic phase and HCl 0.1molL−1 as the internal aqueous phase presented the highest extraction and recovery yields (100% and 75%, respectively) with a transfer time of 10min.