Liquid purification or separation – Processes – Liquid/liquid solvent or colloidal extraction or diffusing...
Patent
1994-06-10
1996-12-17
Dawson, Robert A.
Liquid purification or separation
Processes
Liquid/liquid solvent or colloidal extraction or diffusing...
21032127, 21050021, 21050023, 210909, B01D 6100, B01D 6302
Patent
active
055850049
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention is concerned with methods of and apparatus for treating aqueous media which contain organic compounds which is to be biologically decomposed into less environmentally polluting by-products.
The present invention has principal application in the field of treating industrial waste waters contaminated with organic pollutants, to achieve substantial or even complete decomposition into less harmful decomposition by-products prior to discharge or to further purification.
Certain industrial waste waters are contaminated with organic materials, particularly aromatic organic compounds such as, for example, benzene, nitrobenzene, toluene, chloronitrobenzene, aniline, pyridine, phenols, substituted phenols and derivatives of all these compounds.
It is, of course, desirable to further improve upon treatment processes, such as the activated sludge or trickling filter processes, which serve to reduce the content of organic material in industrial waste waters. Environmental directives, which may have subsequent legal effect, stipulate treatment to remove or substantially reduce specified organic compounds before discharge into the environment or before supplementary purification works. There is therefore considerable pressure upon the chemical industry to reduce organic pollutants in discharged waters and the benefits of biological decomposition by micro-organism are becoming increasingly recognised and important.
Furthermore, conventional treatment of waste water containing volatile organic compounds can involve atmospheric discharge of vapours or gases from volatile organic compounds (hereinafter abbreviated in the singular or plural to VOC) which still creates atmospheric pollution, hence it is also desirable to address known problems with biological decomposition of VOC.
VOC are the source of a great deal of concern in the environment, due to primary toxicity (for example, chlorinated hydrocarbons), and also due to secondary effects on atmospheric chemistry. Much technology development in the chemical industry has been aimed at ways of converting these compounds into less harmful by-products. Many routes to oxidation (catalytic incineration, adsorption on activated carbon followed by thermal regeneration of the carbon) have been advanced. The most economical of these, however, remains biological treatment by suitable microorganisms known per se. However, there is a problem associated with aeration of waste waters containing VOC.Aeration is necessary to allow aerobic biological degradation to become established and proceed, but also results in air stripping of VOC from the reactor. Air stripped VOC must then be recovered in an adsorption unit or some such device, before eventual atmospheric discharge of the air.
It is from knowledge of the disadvantages associated with conventional methods of treating waste that has led to the present invention.
In one aspect, the invention provides a method of reducing the concentration of at least one organic compound present in an aqueous feedstock, wherein a flow of said feedstock contacts one surface of a substantially water-insoluble selectively permeable sheet or tubular membrane whose permeability to the or each said organic compound exceeds its permeability to chloride ion, whilst simultaneously maintaining in contact with the other surface of said membrane an aqueous reaction medium containing biologically active reaction means capable of reacting with said at least one compound after it permeates through the wall of the tubular membrane.
The invention also embraces apparatus suitable for carrying the above method into effect, as particularly described subsequently in the illustrated embodiments.
The aqueous supply medium preferably comprises waste water from an industrial process which is contaminated with at least one organic compound and which may or may not contain chloride ion. Several organic compounds may be present and the present method may be employed to reduce the concentration of (i.e. at least partially decompose) more than one organic compound or
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Abstract of Japanese Publication No. JP1222768 Dated Jun. 12, 1989, Abstract vol. 013546.
Dawson Robert A.
Imperial College of Science Technology & Medicine
Jones Kenneth M.
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