3 research outputs found
Palladium Recovery through Membrane Capacitive Deionization from Metal Plating Wastewater
The
potential application of membrane capacitive deionization (MCDI)
for recovery of palladium (Pd) ions from catalyst solution wastewater
generated from the plating industry was investigated in this study.
Several major issues were explored in this work to verify the suitability
of MCDI for Pd recovery from a practical perspective: adsorption and
desorption efficiencies, desorption mechanisms into high concentration
of Pd concentrate, and its sustainability in long-term operation.
The lab-scale MCDI operation achieved satisfactory and highly competitive
Pd removal (99.07–99.94% removal with 1.42–1.52 of Pd
selectivity over ammonium ions) showing that Pd can be effectively
collected from plating industry wastewater. A high concentration of
Pd concentrate (64.77 and 919.44 mg/L of Pd from the 10 and 100 mg/L
Pd containing catalyst solution, respectively) was obtained through
successive five operation cycles of adsorption/desorption phases.
However, it is significant to note that the desorption efficiency
was inversely proportional to the concentration of Pd concentrate
which is likely due to the Pd ions discharged from carbon electrode
toward Pd solution against the enhanced concentration gradient. The
long-term operation results suggest that scaling could reduce the
MCDI efficiency during Pd recovery (0.17% decrease in Pd removal for
every cycle on average) and hence may require an adequate electrode
cleaning regime
Blended Fertilizers as Draw Solutions for Fertilizer-Drawn Forward Osmosis Desalination
In fertilizer-drawn forward osmosis (FDFO) desalination,
the final
nutrient concentration (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium (NPK)) in
the product water is essential for direct fertigation and to avoid
over fertilization. Our study with 11 selected fertilizers indicate
that blending of two or more single fertilizers as draw solution (DS)
can achieve significantly lower nutrient concentration in the FDFO
product water rather than using single fertilizer alone. For example,
blending KCl and NH<sub>4</sub>H<sub>2</sub>PO<sub>4</sub> as DS can
result in 0.61/1.35/1.70 g/L of N/P/K, which is comparatively lower
than using them individually as DS. The nutrient composition and concentration
in the final FDFO product water can also be adjusted by selecting
low nutrient fertilizers containing complementary nutrients and in
different ratios to produce prescription mixtures. However, blending
fertilizers generally resulted in slightly reduced bulk osmotic pressure
and water flux in comparison to the sum of the osmotic pressures and
water fluxes of the two individual DSs as used alone. The performance
ratio or PR (ratio of actual water flux to theoretical water flux)
of blended fertilizer DS was observed to be between the PR of the
two fertilizer solutions tested individually. In some cases, such
as urea, blending also resulted in significant reduction in N nutrient
loss by reverse diffusion in presence of other fertilizer species
Nanoscale Pillar-Enhanced Tribological Surfaces as Antifouling Membranes
We
present a nonconventional membrane surface modification approach that
utilizes surface topography to manipulate the tribology of foulant
accumulation on water desalination membranes via imprinting of submicron
titanium dioxide (TiO<sub>2</sub>) pillar patterns onto the molecularly
structured, flat membrane surface. This versatile approach overcomes
the constraint of the conventional approach relying on interfacial
polymerization that inevitably leads to the formation of ill-defined
surface topography. Compared to the nonpatterned membranes, the patterned
membranes showed significantly improved fouling resistance for both
organic protein and bacterial foulants. The use of hydrophilic TiO<sub>2</sub> as a pattern material increases the membrane hydrophilicity,
imparting improved chemical antifouling resistance to the membrane.
Fouling behavior was also interpreted in terms of the topographical
effect depending on the relative size of foulants to the pattern dimension.
In addition, computational fluid dynamics simulation suggests that
the enhanced antifouling of the patterned membrane is attributed to
the enhancement in overall and local shear stress at the fluid–TiO<sub>2</sub> pattern interface