Rapid and Continuous Extraction of Methyl Red from Wastewater Using Counter Current Chromatography

Abstract

A new prototype and simple low speed counter current chromatography (LSCCC) has been fabri-cated and a laboratory work has been carried out for rapid and continuous removal of methyl red from wastewater using xylene as an extractant. The distribution ratio (D) and percentage of reco-veries were calculated. The optimum concentration for extraction of methyl red was in the range of 2 × 10 −4 to 8 × 10 −4 mol • L −1 . Maximum extraction achieved at pH range of 2 to 4.5. Various dye concentrations and solvent effects were studied to optimized conditions. It was shown that when the ratio of the organic phase to aqueous phase increased to more than 3:1, the striping efficiency decreased sharply. The experiments were carried out for 5 times and the highest extraction achieved was 99.8 per cent by two-solvent system LSCCC in just 5 minutes. Real wastewater sam-ples were analyzed and the efficiency of the technique was compared with liquid-liquid extraction (LLE). In practice it was shown that although both techniques are rapid, the efficiency of the LSCCC is much better than LLE.