Treatment of Phenolic Wastewaters by a Domestic Low-Pressure Reverse Osmosis System

In this paper, the removal of phenol by using aqueous solution in a low pressure reverse osmosis membrane was investigated. The effect of feed pressure, feed concentration, feed flow rate and feed pH on phenol rejection was investigated. The results showed that feed pH is the most affective parameter on the phenol rejection. Rejection of phenol increased with increasing pH from 2 to 10 under the best conditions. According to the results, there was a critical pressure in this separation and for pressures higher than this pressure, phenol rejection decreased. Feed flow rate had a positive effect on the phenol rejection but the effect of feed concentration was similar to the effect of feed pressure. The results showed that the maximum rejection was measured equal to 71% at 200 mg/L, 408.1 kPa, pH =10 and 1.172 L/min feed flow rate.