Separation of Zinc Chloride (ZnCI2) Metal Using Membrane Process

Nowadays, heavy metals are widely utilized as a main materialto produce catalyst in
petrochemical industryand they are also very harmful chemical substancethat needs
to be treated before can be discharged. The objective ofthis research is to investigate
the separation behavior of heavy metal using membrane process. In this study, three
commercial membranes; AFC 99 (Reverse Osmosis-RO), AFC40 (Nanofiltration-
NF) and CA 202 (Ultrafiltration-UF) membranes were tested to determine the flux
and salt rejection in aqueous solution. Zinc chloride (ZnCy was used in the
experiments to prepare the aqueous solution. Effects of cross flow velocity, pressure,
types of membranes and feed concentration towards the flux and salt rejection of
those membranes were investigated. Experiments showed that the cross flow
velocities had a significant effect on permeate flux values. In addition, the permeate
flux increases almost in linear form as the cross flow velocity increased. Similarly,
permeate flux increased as operating pressure was increased. Other parameters that
affect the flux are types of membrane. From the result, the CA 202 membrane
produced the highest flux followed by AFC 40 and AFC 99 respectively. For
concentration effect, the flux decreased with increasing of ZnCfe concentration.
Variations in pressure and cross flow velocity also affected the salt rejection, which
decreased with increasing of feed concentration. Salt rejection at low cross flow
velocities was lower than those conducted at high cross flow velocities and
independent of the pressure. From the experiment, the AFC 99 has the highest
rejection recorded which was 98% followed by AFC 40 (84%) and CA 202 (58%)
membranes respectively. This work shows that the membrane separation processes,
particularly AFC 99 (RO), can be used to selectively remove ZnCl2 from
wastewater.