Application of Emulsion Liquid Membrane Using Green Surfactant for Removing Phenol from Aqueous Solution: Extraction, Stability and Breakage Studies

Emulsion Liquid Membrane (ELM) has garnered much attention, for its simple operation and high selectivity for the target solute. For an ELM process to be successful, emulsion stability and formulation of liquid membrane are the two main criteria. This study investigated an ELM formulation to identify a suitable green surfactant over the ordinary center dot ones to reduce the utilization of chemicals. The stability of water-in-oil-in-water (w/o/w) was assessed in the following ways, by altering the concentrations of the egg yolk and NaOH, homogenizer speed, and emulsification time. To ascertain the favorable conditions for phenol extraction, several experiments were performed, adopting the batch process, which included many parameters, like the influence exerted by the pH of the external feed, concentration of surfactant. concentration of the internal phase. time of emulsification, homogenization speed and mixing time. Lower breakage and greater extraction efficiency (0.83% and 82.06%, respectively) were attained at 3.5 pH of the external feed, 4% (v/v) of the surfactant, 0.1 M of NaOH, 7 min of emulsification time, 5800 rpm of homogenizer speed and 3 minutes of mixing time. From the results of this study, egg yolk emerged as a good green surfactant. Thus, the ELM process holds promise as an effective technology for stripping phenol from aqueous solutions.