Using Various Surfactants for Ultrafiltration Removal of Cobalt(II) Ions from Contaminated Water

Abstract

Heavy metals (HM) are among the most dangerous inorganic ecotoxicants that can have a mutagenic and toxic effect on all objects of the biosphere. Ingressing a living organism, heavy metals can accumulate in various tissues and organs, causing their dysfunction. Therefore, water contamination with heavy metals is among the most urgent problems of environmental safety in both our country and the whole world, and the development of modern, efficient, and cost-effective methods for purifying contaminated water from heavy metals is an essential and urgent task today. Baromembrane separation in combination with other physical and chemical processes is one of the effective methods for extracting heavy metal ions from contaminated waters. In this work, we studied the possibility of using an anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (NaSDS) and nonionic polyethylene glycol tert-octylphenyl ether (Triton X-100) to purify contaminated waters from Co(II) by ultrafiltration. The main characteristics of the baromembrane process were determined: the retention factors of the ions of the tested metal and the volumetric flow rate through the polymeric ultrafiltration membrane. Ultrafiltration in combination with the use of surfactants is effective for water purification from heavy metal ions or radionuclides, as demonstrated by an example of Co(II). The process should be performed at concentrations of surfactants near the critical micelle concentration for optimal results.