Removal of phenol by emulsion liquid membrane utilising different diluents

The phenol was removed from an aqueous solution using an emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) technique. The NaOH as a stripping agent, a surfactant was sorbitan monooleate (span 80) and hexane was a solvent in this study. Many variables were investigated, which are the volume ratio of membrane phase to external phase (M/E), mixing speed (250-600 rpm), phenol concentration (100-2000 ppm), time of mixing (2-10 min.), and NaOH concentration (0.1-2 M). The phenol removal efficiency was 99.8% for hexane when the concentration of surfactant is 2 percent (v/v), the volume ratio of the external phase to the membrane phase (E/M) is 5:1, and the mixing speed is 350 rpm, 0.5 M of NaOH and the optimum mixing time was 6 minutes. This work aims to study the phenol removal efficiency using different parameters with Hexane solvent.