Extraction Of Acetaminophen From Aqueous Solution By Emulsion Liquid Membrane
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Date
2019-03-01
Authors
Zaulkiflee, Nur Dina
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
In recent years there is an increasing awareness of pharmaceutical
contaminants in the environment. Pharmaceutical contamination in rivers is
widespread with hundreds of drugs found at low concentrations. One of the main
abundantly used pharmaceuticals are acetaminophen (ACTP). The application of
conventional treatment process in wastewater treatment plants is unable to completely
remove the residues. Thus, among the existing methods, one of the promising methods
for ACTP removal is by emulsion liquid membrane (ELM). ELM comprises internal
and membrane phase which form primary W/O (water-in-oil) emulsion. The
formulation of ELM was investigated to find suitable carrier, diluent and stripping
agent. The effect of emulsion formulation parameters of ELM was investigated in
order to obtain its best formulation for removal of ACTP. Selection of suitable ELM
components, use of ultrasound emulsification and Taylor-Couette Column (TCC) are
expected to increase the extraction efficiency. The influence of several parameters
such as carrier, surfactant and stripping agent concentration, ultrasonic power, volume
ratio, emulsification time, treat ratio, initial and acid concentration, stirring time and
stirring speed were investigated. The results show that kerosene as a diluent,
Trioctylamine (TOA) as carrier or extractant and ammonia (NH3) as stripping agent
were the most suitable for the liquid membrane formulation of ACTP removal. The
optimum condition for the emulsification study was found at 6 wt.% of TOA and Span
80, 0.1 M concentration of stripping agent, 15 minutes of emulsification time, volume
ratio of 3:1, 20 W power of ultrasonic probe, 10 ppm of initial concentration, 0.1M of
HCl concentration, 5 minutes of extraction time using TCC with a frequency angular
ratio of 1.0 and treat ratio of 3:1. The prepared ELM was found to effectively remove
85% of ACTP ions from aqueous solution. Thus, ELM process is a promising
technology to extract ACTP from pharmaceutical production wastewater.