Extraction of humic acid from aqueous solution with polymer inclusion membrane

Humic acids (HA) are one of the major components of humic substance. Humic substances are naturally occurring water contaminants which result from the biodegradation of plants. Although humic acid is not directly toxic, it does produce undesirable colour, taste and odour. Humic acid also reacts with chlorine during drinking water disinfection to produce carcinogenic disinfection by-products. Many methods have been used to remove humic acid from drinking water including coagulation, membrane separation and adsorption. Membrane separation is a relatively new type of separation process, which is predicted ultimately to replace a majority of the conventional separation systems. In this study, we carried out to remove an humic acid from their aqueous solutions using polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs) consisting of cellulose triacetate (CTA) as the base polymer, 2-Nitro phenyl pentyl ether (2-NPPE) as the plasticizer, trioctylmethylammoniumchloride (Aliquat 336) as carrier and tributylphosphate (TBP) as a modifier. Extraction efficiency was studied under various experimental conditions, such as, stirring speed, stripping solution type and concentration. Keywords: Polymer inclusion membrane, humic acid, fulvic acid, CTA