Performance evaluation of emulsion liquid membrane for simultaneous copper and cadmium removal: Dispersion tool comparison

Abstract

The content of heavy metal ions in industrial wastewater could be a great threat to the environment and humans’ health. Owing to this issue, the emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) is proposed as an effective technique to remove heavy metal from aqueous solution. The current work intended to compare the performance of ELM extraction using two dispersion tools; conventional stirrer and Taylor-Couette Column (TCC). The effect of stirring speed and extraction time of both devices on the removal efficiency of copper and cadmium will be looked at. Results obtained demonstrated a huge reduction in extraction time to simultaneously remove the two types of heavy metals. The maximum extraction efficiency in conventional stirrer for both copper and cadmium were found at 400 rpm in 20 mins (99.52%) and 10 mins (95.47%), respectively. Meanwhile, the highest efficiency in TCC for copper was found to be slightly lower although it offers shorter time for the performance to peak. 200 rpm of outer cylinder is required to achieve 96.38% while 600 rpm is required to remove as high as 81.59% of cadmium. The extraction time required to obtain the maximum removal in TCC is 5 mins and 3 mins for copper and cadmium, respectively.