Liquid Membranes in Advanced Treatment

Abstract

Membrane separation processes are often more capital and energy efficient when compared with conventional separation processes. Membrane systems are always compact and modular. Liquid membranes can be constituted by placing a third immiscible phase between two miscible phases. Membrane processes composed from liquid phase are; Bulk Liquid Membranes (BLM), Electrostatic Pseudo Liquid Membranes (ESPLIM), Supported Liquid Membranes(SLM) and Emulsion Liquid Membranes (ELM). Liquid membrane processes are used in wastewater treatment, chemical engineering, hydrometallurgy, biotechnological and biomedical applications. It is stated in the studies exist at the literature that ionic pollutants are removed with high efficiencies such as 99.9%. In this article, liquid membrane processes and advantages, disadvantages, superiorities and applications in water treatment of these processes were investigated.