Recovery of gallic acid from gallic acid processing wastewater

In this paper, an extraction technology has been investigated to recover gallic acid (GA) from GA processing wastewater. The effects of phase ratio and pH on the extraction behaviour of tributyl phosphate (TBP)/kerosene were investigated using TBP as the extractant and kerosene as the diluent. Our results showed that using 30% TBP, equilibrium was reached in 1 min. Extraction yields could be improved by increasing the phase ratio (organic phase:aqueous phase). The optimum pH values for the extraction and stripping processes were 3 and 6-9, respectively. The different GA concentrations had no noticeable effects on the distribution ratio between the organic phase and the aqueous phase during the extraction and stripping processes. The extraction yield that resulted from using the six-stage concentrating extraction was greater than 93%, with a phase ratio of 1:1 and an initial pH of 0.6. The GA concentration in the four-stage stripping liquor was greater than 100 g L-1. Overall, the results indicated that the recovery of GA from GA processing wastewater is feasible using the methods described in this paper.