Microemulsion Liquid Membranes. I. Application to Acetic Acid Removal from Water

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Abstract
A separation technique utilizing nonionic microemulsions as emulsion liquid membranes has been successfully applied to the removal of acetic acid from an aqueous feed phase. The surfactant systems were carefully characterized in order to assure that they were truly microemulsions. The effects of mixing intensity, feed concentration, treat ratio, and microemulsion viscosity on the separation kinetics were investigated. The microemulsions did not typically display leakage and had negligible swell over 5-minute duration. The reversible phase behavior of the microemulsion was utilized to demulsify the liquid membrane phase and recover the acetate ion via a temperature change of approximately 40°C. Material balances closed to within 10% and rates of separation were faster than the sampling rates when the microemulsion was fully dispersed in the aqueous feed phase.