The electrospun nanofibers membranes have gained considerable interest in water filtration applications. In this work, the fabrication and characterization of the electrospun polyacrylonitrile-based nonwoven nanofibers membrane are reported. Then, the membrane's performance and antifouling properties were evaluated in removing emulsified oil using a cross flow filtration system. The membranes were fabricated with different polyacrylonitrile (PAN) concentrations (8, 11, and 14 wt. %) in N, N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) solvent resulted in various average fiber sizes, porosity, contact angle, permeability, oil rejection, and antifouling properties. Analyses of surface morphology of the fabricated membranes before and after oil removal revealed increasing the fiber size, decreasing the fouling amount, and increasing the permeate flux. On the other hand, decreasing the fiber size resulting in increases the oil rejection. It was observed that 11 wt. % PAN based nonwoven nanofiber membrane was the optimum membrane for emulsified oil removal due to its good porosity, permeability with good oil rejection. In addition, fouled nonwoven nanofiber membrane cleaning was done by backwashing technique using warm distilled water which was effective in retaining the membrane permeability and oil rejection for 7 times. The obtained results confirmed an efficient performance of the fabricated nanofibers membrane for oil-water separation with oil rejection percentage of 92.5% and a permeate flux of 120 LMH.
The removal of turbidity from produced water by chemical coagulation/flocculation method using locally available coagulants was investigated. Aluminum sulfate (alum) is selected as a primary coagulant, while calcium hydroxide (lime) is used as a coagulant aid. The performance of these coagulants was studied through jar test by comparing turbidity removal at different coagulant/ coagulants aid ratio, coagulant dose, water pH, and sedimentation time. In addition, an attempt has been made to examine the relationship between turbidity (NTU) and total suspended solids (mg/L) on the same samples of produced water. The best conditions for turbidity removal can be obtained at 75% alum+25% lime coagulant at coagulant dose of 80 m
... Show MoreThis work was conducted to study the ability of locally prepared Zeolite NaY for the reduction of sulfur compounds from Iraqi natural gas by a continuous mode adsorption unit. Zeolite Y was hydrothermally synthesized using abundant kaolin clay as aluminum precursor. Characterization was made using chemical analysis, XRD and BET surface area. Results of the adsorption experiments showed that zeolite Y is an active adsorbent for removal H2S from natural gas and other gas streams. The effect of temperature was found inversely related to the removal efficiency. Increasing bed height was found to increase the removal efficiency at constant flow rate of natural gas. The adsorption capacity was evaluated and its maximum uptake was 5.345 mg H2S/g z
... Show MoreThis paper presents studying the performance of three types of polyethersulfone (PES) membrane for the simultaneous removal of Co2+ ions, Cd2+ ions, and Pb2+ ions from binary and ternary aqueous solutions. Co2+ ions, Cd2+ ions, and Pb2+ ions with two different initial concentrations (e.g., 10 and 50 ppm) were selected as examples of heavy metals that contaminate the groundwater as a result of geological and human activities. This study investigated the effect of types of PES membrane and metal ions concentration on the separation process. For the binary aqueous solutions, the permeation flux of the PES2 membranes was higher for the separation process of solutions containing 50 ppm of Cd2+ ions and 10 ppm of Co2+ ions (24.7 L
... Show MoreThe potential application of granules of brick waste (GBW) as a low-cost sorbent for removal of Ni+2ions from aqueous solutions has been studied. The properties of GBW were determined through several tests such as X-Ray diffraction (XRD), Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and BET surface area. In batch tests, the influence of several operating parameters including contact time, initial concentration, agitation speed, and the dose of GBW was investigated. The best values of these parameters that provided maximum removal efficiency of nickel (39.4%) were 1.5 hr, 50 mg/L, 250 rpm, and 1.8 g/100mL, respectively. The adsorption data obtained by batch experiments subjected to the Three i
... Show MoreThe study's objective is to produce Nano Graphene Oxide (GO) before using it for batch adsorption to remove heavy metals (Cadmium Cd+2, Nickel Ni+2, and Vanadium V+5) ions from industrial wastewater. The temperature effect (20-50) °C and initial concentration effect (100-800) mg L-1 on the adsorption process were studied. A simulation aqueous solution of the ions was used to identify the adsorption isotherms, and after the experimental data was collected, the sorption process was studied kinetically and thermodynamically. The Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin isotherm models were used to fit the data. The results showed that Cd, Ni, and V ions on the GO adsorbing surface matched the Langmuir model with correlation coefficients (R2)
... Show MoreThe study's objective is to produce Nano Graphene Oxide (GO) before using it for batch adsorption to remove heavy metals (Cadmium Cd+2, Nickel Ni+2, and Vanadium V+5) ions from industrial wastewater. The temperature effect (20-50) °C and initial concentration effect (100-800) mg L-1 on the adsorption process were studied. A simulation aqueous solution of the ions was used to identify the adsorption isotherms, and after the experimental data was collected, the sorption process was studied kinetically and thermodynamically. The Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin isotherm models were used to fit the data. The results showed that Cd, Ni, and V ions on the GO adsorbing surface matched the Langmuir mo
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Reverse osmosis membrane desalination is one of the most significant water treatments that is used to offer freshwater. The aim of this research is to study the effect of controlling the value of the zeta potential on the suspended particles in the water and the proximity of the membrane surfaces in the colloidal solution, to keep the water stable electrically and disperse the colloidal particles. To achieve this aim, the experimental study was conducted in the Sanitary Engineering Laboratory, in the engineering college - University of Baghdad. Two systems were set up, one worked normally and the other worked by using the zeta rod placed before the reverse osmosis membrane. The results showed that the effect of the zeta rod increas
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