Phenol Removal from Water by AG Reverse
Osmosis Membrane
Amine Mnif, Dorra Tabassi, Mourad Ben Sik Ali, and B
Desalination and Water Treatment Research Unit, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, Tunis El Manar
University, El Manar II 2092, Tunisia; amine.mnif@gmail.com (for correspondence)
Published online 00 Month 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/ep.12078
Phenols are considered as organic pollutants that are dis-
charged into the environment causing contamination of
drinking water, aquatic life, and plants, and therefore,
affecting human. Various treatment technologies for removal
of the pollutants from water have been used such as, liquid
liquid extraction, ionic exchange with resins, and mem-
brane processes. In this study, removal and adsorption of
phenol from aqueous solutions were studied using a polyam-
ide thin film composite reverse osmosis membrane denoted as
AG 2514 TF from Osmonics company. The influence of dif-
ferent parameters, such as, feed concentration, ionic
strength, transmembrane pressure, and recovery on the elim-
ination of phenol was also studied. In addition, the effect of
transmembrane pressure, feed concentration, and ionic
strength on the adsorption of phenol was investigated. For a
better understanding of the behavior of the membrane and
to get more insights into the retention of phenol, the mem-
brane was characterized with the determination of its sur-
face charge and also by the mechanism of transport through
this membrane. The results show that the retention of phenol
by AG membrane exceeds 40% and may reach 80%. This
was found to depend on feed concentration, ionic strength,
transmembrane pressure, and recovery. The adsorption
amounts were too low and did not exceed 23%. V C 2015
American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 00:
000000, 2015
Keywords: phenol removal, reverse osmosis, KedemKatch-
elsky model, mass transfer, adsorption
INTRODUCTION
Phenol and phenolic derivates are commonly the most
common forms of chemical pollutants in the industrial waste-
water [1,2]. Phenolic compounds in effluents are poorly bio-
degradable and highly toxic, presenting a serious ecological
problem of discharge [3]. They are considered as environ-
mental pollutants found in different concentrations in waste-
waters released by many industrial processes, such as, oil
refineries, plastics, cooking, synthetic rubber, paper, petro-
chemical, ceramic, and phenolic resin industries [4,5]. Priority
is given to these pollutants since they are harmful to organ-
isms at low concentrations and many of them have been
classified as hazardous pollutants due to their potential harm
to human as well [4].
Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online ver-
sion of this article.
C 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers
V less polar groups than hydrophilic compounds, they would
Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy (Vol.00, No.00) DOI 10.1002/ep
echir Hamrouni
Because of the high toxicity of phenols, they are sub-
jected to specific regulations, and their industrial use is
increasingly avoided by substituting them with harmless
compounds [6].
According to the recommendation of World Health Orga-
nization, the allowed concentration of phenolic contents in
potable water is 1 mg L21. The regulations by the US Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency and the European Union direc-
tive number 80/778/EC, call for lowering phenol content in
wastewaters down to less than 1 mg L21 [7].
Various techniques have been developed to treat phenols
in industrial effluents. These include biological treatments,
incineration, ozonization in the presence of UV radiation,
oxidation with wet air and adsorption, liquidliquid extrac-
tion, and ion-exchange [8]. The main drawbacks of these
techniques are poor performance. The elimination of toxic
elements, particularly phenols, is a key target that separation
techniques can achieve. Among these, processes based on
membrane technology have been shown to give better per-
formance [9].
High-pressure membrane processes such as, nanofiltration
(NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) have been used for removing
some organic pollutants from wastewater [9]. The application
of pressure driven membrane processes for the removal of
low molecular weight organic compounds from wastewater
has been recently reported [10].
RO is an efficient technology to remove organic mole-
cules from water, especially for systems containing low
molecular weight organic compounds. Many studies have
been focused on rejection of organic compounds by RO
membrane. It was shown that the removal of these com-
pounds by RO is governed by the interactions between
membrane material and solute molecules.
Recently, important factors that affect the organic reten-
tion by NF and RO membranes, such as, membrane charac-
teristics, physico-chemical properties of the solutes, solution
chemistry, and operational conditions were reported [1114].
However, the full insights into the mechanism responsible
for the rejection of phenolic compounds, in particular,
remain unclear. This could be partly attributed to the specific
hydrophobic character, molecular size, and the electron den-
sity properties of these compounds.
Physical sieving by pores seems to be one of the main
factors in the retention of organic components, with a molec-
ular mass above the molecular weight cutoff (MWCO) of the
membranes [11]. Hydrophobic (small) components are not
well retained by NF membranes. As these components have
Month 2015 1
Table 1. Main characteristics of the membrane used in the
experimental test module.
Membrane
Manufacturer GE Osmonics
Product denomination AG
Type Thin film composite
Composition Polyamide
Effective membrane 0.6
surface area (m2)
Module Length 14 inch
Diameter 2.5 inch
Maximum operating 30
pressure (bar)
Flux (m3/day) 0.68
Maximum 50
temperature ( C)
NaCl rejection 99.0
pH tolerance 411
be less solvated and can enter more easily in the membrane
pores and permeate through the membrane due to their
smaller size [15]. The influence of adsorption on retention in
these hydrophobic components was also studied and seemed
to be due to increase in permeate concentration which
occurred after saturation of the membrane, leading to a
lower retention [16,17]. However, for charged components,
both size exclusion and electrostatic interactions are respon-
sible for separation [18].
The objective of this study is to use RO membranes for
the removal of phenol. The impact of operational conditions,
such as, feed pressure, recovery, feed concentration, and
ionic strength on phenol rejection in model solutions was
studied. The adsorption percentage of phenol and the contri-
bution for removal were evaluated. The membrane perme-
ability to ultrapure water and the charge of membrane
surface were determined. The membrane separation charac-
teristics were investigated by retention measurements with
model salt solutions of various compositions. For the deter-
mination of reflection coefficient (r), and the solute perme-
ability (Ps) of the membrane, the model of SpieglerKedem
was applied.
EXPERIMENTAL
To investigate phenol removal, the experiments were per-
formed on a pilot plant, performed in our laboratory and
equipped with RO modules. The RO tests were undertaken
using an Osmonics spiral module equipped with AG 2514 TF
membrane. The characteristics of the module AG 2514 TF
used for this study are shown in Table 1.
The set-up used for the operational procedure has been
described in a previous work [19]: a feed tank of 60 L
capacity is provided for storage and supply of the feed to
the system as well as for the collection of the recycled per-
meates and retentate. A high pressure pump capable of
generating a pressure up to 30 bar was installed for trans-
porting the feed liquid through the membrane system. Man-
ual needle valves were provided to pressurize the feed
liquid to a desired pressure indicated by pressure gauges
and installed in both the feed and retentate lines. In each
experiment, a 10 L of phenol solution was permeated at dif-
ferent fixed pressure (p 5 5, 8, 10, and 15 bar). Samples per-
meate was taken at regular intervals during the run and the
unit was operated for sufficient time to ensure steady state
conditions. After each set of experiments for a given feed
concentration the set-up was rinsed with distilled water for
30 min at 5 bar to clean the system. The permeate flux was
determined by measuring the permeate volume correspond-
2 Month 2015 Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy (Vol.00, No.00) DOI 10.1002/ep
ing to 1 min. All experiments were performed at constant
temperature of 25 C.
Ion analyses were performed by ionic chromatography,
coupled to a conductimetric detector.
The phenol concentrations in feed and permeate solu-
tions were measured by spectrophotometry at 270 nm using
a TOMOS V-1100 spectrophotometer model. The calibration
plot of absorbance versus concentration for phenol showed
a linear variation up to a concentration of 60 mg L21. There-
fore, the samples with higher concentration of phenol
(>60 mg L21) were diluted with distilled water, whenever
necessary.
The recovery rate (Y%) is given as:
 
Qp
Y%5 3 100 (1)
Q0
The amount of phenol removed (R%) is obtained using
Eq. 2:
 
Cp
R% 5 12 3 100 (2)
C0
The mass adsorbed (Mads) and adsorption percentage
(AP%) were determined following Eqs. 3 and 4:
 
C0 V0 2 Cp Vp 1Cr Vr 
Mads 5 (3)
S
 
C0 V0 2 Cp Vp 1Cr Vr 
AP% 5 3 100 (4)
C0 V0
where Q0 is the Feed flow rate (L/h), Qp is the Permeate
flow rate (L/h), C0 is the Feed phenol concentration (mol/L),
Cp is the Permeate phenol concentration (mol/L), Cr is the
Retentate phenol concentration (mol/L), V0 is the Feed vol-
ume (L), Vp is the permeate volume (L), Vr is the Retentate
volume (L), S: Effective membrane area (m2)
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Membrane Characterization
To interpret the performance results, the study of the
characteristics of the membrane is necessary. For instance, in
the case of membrane permeability, the results show that
there is proportionality between the obtained solvent (water)
flux (Jv) and the difference between applied transmembrane
pressures and osmotic pressure. The solvent flux (Jv) was
determined by measuring the permeate flow rate (volume of
permeate collected in a given time interval) per unit mem-
brane area. The osmoticP pressure was determined by the fol-
lowing expression: Dp5 i CRT.
According to the Darcy law, these parameters are related
by the following expression:
DP2Dp
Jv 5 5Lp :DP2Dp (5)
l:Rm
where Rm is the intrinsic resistance of the membrane (m21),
mis the The dynamic viscosity of water (Pa s), Lpis the Pure
water permeability (L h21 m22 bar21), DP is the Transmem-
brane pressure (bar), Dp is the Osmotic pressure (bar).
The membrane permeability of water determined using
Eq. 5 is equal to 3.17 L h21 m22 bar21 (Figure 1).
For salt retention measurement, the retention of the three
salts NaCl, Na2SO4, and CaCl2 by the RO membrane as func-
tion of concentration is shown in Figure 2, which allows the
 Table 2. Diffusion coefficients of different electrolytes in
water [20]

Electrolyte D (1029 m2 s21)

NaCl 1.61
CaCl2 1.45
Na2SO4 1.23

Table 3. Hydration energies of different electrolytes [22].

Ions Na1 Ca21 Cl2 SO22

4
Hydration energy 454 1615 325 1047
(kJ mol21)

Figure 1. Solvent flux as a function of transmembrane

pressure. Table 4. Transport parameters (r and Ps), diffusive flux Jdiff
and Cconv of different salts at different concentrations.

Jdiff Cconv
Salts (L h21 m22) (mol L21) r Ps
NaCl 2 3 1024 2 3 1028 1 0.312
(1023 mol L21)
Na2SO4 1024 3 3 1028 1 0.236
(1023 mol L21
)
NaCl 2 3 1025 2 3 028 1 3.8 3 1024
(1021 mol L21
)
Na2SO4 1025 3 3 1028 1 3.3 3 1024
(1021 mol L21
)

experiments [20,21]. The results show that the membrane has

Figure 2. Retention of different salts as a function of the
concentration. [Color figure can be viewed in the online
issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]
classification of the rates of retention of these three salts
according to the following order:
RNa2 SO4 > RCaCl2 > RNaCl
The retention sequence is thus, RNa1 < RCa21 and
RSO22 > RCl2 , that is, the retention for both bivalent cation
and4 anion is the highest. This indicates that the retention is
mainly due to a difference in diffusion coefficients between
the different salts.
As shown in Table 2, the diffusion coefficient decreases
in the order NaCl > CaCl2 > Na2SO4. This is inversely
reflected in the retention sequence. The salt with the lowest
diffusion coefficient shows the highest retention and vice
versa. In this case, it is assumed that the sequence of diffu-
sion coefficients does not change when the electrolytes dif-
fuse through the membrane, a swollen system, instead of
through water.
Despite this retention sequence, the surface charge should
not be neglected. For instance, the presence of charged
groups in the membrane surface was confirmed by titration
a negative charge of 2.45 3 1026 eq m22 and a positive
charge of 1.36 3 1027 eq m22, indicating that the membrane
carries a surplus of negatively charged groups. This indicates
that the charge effect contributes to the retention phenom-
enon in addition to the diffusion effect.
Furthermore, it was observed that the salt retention may
be related to a difference in hydration energies (see Table 3)
of ions suggesting a steric effect on retention. Indeed, the
ions which have higher hydration energy are more retained.
The polyvalent ions, which have a higher energy of hydra-
tion, are better retained than less hydrated monovalent ions
as is the case with sulphate anions relative to chloride anions
and cations calcium relative to sodium cations.
It is worth to note that for the determination of phenome-
nological parameters, the model of KedemKatchalsky was
used and is detailed in our previous work [22].
The values of the parameters of Jdiff (solute flux due to
diffusion [L h21 m22]) and Cconv (solute concentration due to
convection [mol L21]) like those of r (reflexion coefficient)
and Ps (solute permeability) are grouped in the Table 4.
Table 4 shows that the values of Ps depend on the nature
of the anion. Strongly solvated sulfate anions lead to lower
values of Ps in comparison with the less solvated monovalent
anions (Cl2). The reflection coefficient r is a characteristic of
the convective transport of the solute. The value of r is
about equal to 1 for different salts. High values of r were
obtained by Mnif et al. [22] using a thin film composite (TFC)
polyamide membrane for NaCl and Na2SO4 salts. This indi-
cates that the convection solute transport is completely hin-
dered or that no transport by convection takes place at all
which is the case for ideal RO membranes that have dense
structure and no pores are available for convective transport.

Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy (Vol.00, No.00) DOI 10.1002/ep Month 2015 3
Figure 3. Effect of transmembrane pressure on phenol rejec-
tion, C 5 50 mg L21, pH 5 6.5, Y 5 25%.
The retention may, however, be lower than 100% because
solute transport may take place through solution diffusion.
From the Cconv values shown in Table 4, the MWCO of
the RO membrane can be calculated from Eq. 6 as reported
recently by Lhassani et al. [23].
  13 
M 2
Cconv 5C0 12 (6)
Sc
where M the molecular weight of a solute, Sc the MWCO of
the membrane and C0 the initial concentration of the solute
in the feed.
The results obtained for the determination of the MWCO
is under diluted solution (1023 M) using a divalent salt such
as Na2SO4, because the definition of the MWCO determina-
tion is based on rejections higher than 90%. The value
obtained of MWCO is of 145 Da.
Influence of Operating Conditions on the Phenol
Retention
Effect of Transmembrane Pressure
Several assays were performed to study the influence of
the transmembrane pressure on phenol retention. The oper-
ating transmembrane pressure was varied between 5 and 20
bars, the phenol concentration was 50 mg L21, pH was 6.5
and temperature was 25 6 2 C.
The effect of the transmembrane pressure is shown in
Figure 3. As can be seen, the retention increased slightly
with increasing the transmembrane pressure. This shows that
the observed retention of phenol increases from 44% at 5
bars to 52% at 15 bars. Similar results have been obtained by
Li et al. [24] with better phenol retention up to 60 and 70%
for RO99 and RO98pt membranes, respectively. However,
increasing pressure was shown to lead to a decrease in phe-
nol retention that did not exceed 50% [25]. In our case, the
slight variation of phenol retention on change in transmem-
brane pressure could be explained by the diffusive nature of
the mass transfer through membrane. Another study [26]
explained this slight increase of phenol retention with pres-
sure in terms of an increase in the pressure that would lead
to a more diluted permeate with increased water flux.
Despite excellent rejection of salts, RO membranes, espe-
cially thin-film polyamide composites, often show poor rejec-
tion levels for many small organic molecules.
4 Month 2015 Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy (Vol.00, No.00) DOI 10.1002/ep
Figure 4. Influence of recovery on phenol retention,
C 5 100 mg L21, pH 5 6.5, p 5 10 bar.
Kosutic and Kunst [27] characterized RO membrane pores
as micropores with diameters in the range 0.220.44 nm.
These authors reported that a membrane with the smallest
pore size does not always have the highest solute rejection,
especially for low molecular weight noncharged organics.
Therefore, it is believed that RO membranes reject dissolved
solutes by preventing their diffusion across the membrane
and sterically or chemically hindering their transport through
pores.
Effect of Recovery
Recovery is very important parameter in filtration which
affects retention. In real applications RO operation will be
operated at high recovery with more permeate obtained.
Experiments were performed at transmembrane pressure 10
bars, temperature 25 C, recovery ranged from 25 to 75%
with phenol concentration of 100 mg L21.
As displayed in Figure 4, when the recovery increases,
the phenol retention decreased. One can clearly see that the
phenol retention was considerably affected by the recovery
rate and varies from 64% for a recovery rate of 25 to 37% for
a recovery rate of 75%. This decrease of phenol retention is
mainly due to a decrease in the cross flow velocity involving
an increase of the concentration near the membrane and
appearance of a layer of polarization, which is formed at
high recovery rates due to the accumulation of retained sol-
utes at the membrane solution interface [28]. This behavior is
typical for filtration in batch concentration mode as the
increase in recovery indicates lower percentage of retention,
in agreement with diffusion controlled mechanism com-
monly known for this type of membranes [29]. The increase
in recovery leads to an increase of the phenol concentration
near the membrane surface which facilitates transport
through the membrane, thus leading to a decrease in the
rejection.
Influence of Water Characteristics on Phenol Retention
Effect of Feed Phenol Concentration
The influence of the initial concentration of phenol on
their retention is shown in Figure 5. It appears that there is a
significant effect, an increase in the phenol retention with
the increase in the initial phenol concentration. Indeed, the
phenol retention increases with the increase in the concen-
tration varying from 45% for a concentration 50 mg L21 to
Figure 5. Influence of feed concentration on phenol reten-
tion, pH 5 6.5, Y 5 25%. [Color figure can be viewed in the
online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]
Figure 6. Influence of ionic strength on phenol retention,
C 5 100 mg L21 pH 5 6.5, Y 5 25%. [Color figure can be
viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonli-
nelibrary.com.]
67% for a concentration 2000 mg L21, at 5 bars transmem-
brane pressure.
Gomez et al. [30] explain this by the fact that increasing
the feed concentration leads to an increase in the amount in
permeate, but as the increase of permeate concentration is
lower than the increase in feed concentration, retention
increases in accordance to Eq. 1. This is in a disagreement
with other results [24] that showed an independence of phe-
nol retention on the initial concentration.
Effect of Ionic Strength
The effect of ionic strength on the retention of phenol
was studied through addition of various concentrations of
NaCl between 1023 and 1021 mol L21.
Figure 6 shows that the increase in NaCl concentration is
accompanied by decrease in the phenol retention.
The preliminary retention measurements show that the
AG membrane could be classified as membrane with salt
Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy (Vol.00, No.00) DOI 10.1002/ep
Figure 7. Influence of pH on phenol retention, C 5 100 mg
L21, Y 5 25%. [Color figure can be viewed in the online
issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]
retention sequence that can be determined by the diffusion
coefficients of the electrolytes involved.
Although the membrane charge did not seem to be deter-
mining for the salt separation of these membranes, in the
modeling, the membrane charge was not neglected.
Indeed, when the NaCl concentration increases there are
more sodium ions which neutralize partially the negative
charges of the membrane, facilitating the phenol passage.
When one considers the exclusion model of Donnan
which involves electrostatic forces [22], the decrease in the
charge of the membrane triggers, therefore, a decrease in the
retention of the negatively charged ions as the electrostatic
effect of membrane-aqueous solution is weakened and con-
sequently this exclusion model effect is reduced.
Effect of pH
To investigate the effect of the pH on phenol retention,
several experiments were performed. The pH was set by
adding HCl or NaOH to the solution and was varied in the
range from 6 to 12.
The variation of phenol retention as a function of trans-
membrane pressure at various pH values for RO membrane
is plotted in Figure 7. These results show that the phenol
retention depends strongly on the pH. Indeed, phenol is an
aromatic compound with a pKa value of 9.95. Above pH of
9.95, phenol starts to ionize and charged phenolate anion
become dominant in waters. For pH < 6, the phenol reten-
tion does not exceed 65%. Conversely, for pH 12, the phenol
retention varies between 75 and 90%. The higher phenol
retention in basic pH can be explained by the electrostatic
repulsion between negative charges of membrane surface
and phenolate ions. A typical polyamide membrane has an
isoelectric point between pH 2 and 4. At pH below the iso-
electric point, the membrane is expected to be positively
charged due to the protonation of the amine functional
groups. Conversely, at pH above the isoelectric point, the
membrane surface becomes negatively charged due to the
deprotonation of the carboxylic acid and amine functional
groups of the membrane [31]. Therefore, the polyamide
membranes would have higher negative surface charge at
pH 10 compared to neutral pH. Hence, for the tested RO
membrane, both the enhanced surface charge at higher pH
and the predominance of negatively charged phenolate spe-
cies led to higher phenol retention at basic pH compared to
neutral pH.
Month 2015 5
Figure 8. Effect of transmembrane pressure and feed con-
centration on phenol adsorption. [Color figure can be viewed
in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlineli-
brary.com.]
Phenol Adsorption
It is well known that the adsorption of organic molecules
on membrane surface affects significantly their retention
[32,33]. For instance, the adsorption is a surface phenomenon
which is mainly due to hydrophobicity of molecules, their
ability to form hydrogen bonds as well as to their polarity.
Therefore, solute hydrophobic character would play a major
role in retention. The latter is evaluated by octanolwater
partition coefficient, Kow. If log Kow > 0, the molecule is
hydrophobe and it is hydrophile if Kow < 0 [34]. The adsorp-
tion may also be due to hydrophobic interaction between
membrane and molecules. The hydrophobic character of the
membrane can be determined by measuring the contact
angle a. If a > 90 , the membrane is hydrophobic and hydro-
philic when a < 90 [35].
To determine the retention contribution of phenol adsorp-
tion to the surface of the membrane, the effect of operating
parameters (feed pressure, feed concentration, and ionic
strength) were investigated.
Figures 8 and 9 illustrate the variation of phenol adsorp-
tion percentage (AP%) as function of transmembrane pres-
sure. The results show that the increase in pressure is
accompanied by a decrease in adsorbed mass and, therefore,
in adsorption percentage, in agreement with result obtained
by Benitez et al. [26]. This was interpreted by Claire et al.
[36] who showed that the increase in pressure led to a
release of adsorbed molecules.
Figure 8 shows also that an increase of initial phenol con-
centration enhances adsorption process. But in all experi-
ments, AP% did not exceed 23%. As described by Norberg
et al. [37], most of the TFC RO membranes are hydrophile
and have a contact angle values between 40 and 70. As a
consequence, a weak hydrophobic interaction between phe-
nol and the membrane is expected and leads to a weak
adsorption at the membrane surface.
As depicted in Figure 9, the increase of solution ionic
strength causes also a remarkable decrease in the adsorption
percentage. Similar results were reported by Yuanfang et al.
[33] who described the elimination of organic compound
through NF membrane. These authors interpreted the decrease
in adsorbed amount by an increase in electrostatic interaction
between the electrolyte and negatively charged membrane
and, therefore, a decrease in the interaction between mem-
brane and the organic compound. Thus, such an adsorption
would lead to only a little retention contribution.
6 Month 2015 Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy (Vol.00, No.00) DOI 10.1002/ep
Figure 9. Effect of transmembrane pressure and solution
ionic strength on phenol adsorption. [Color figure can be
viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonli-
nelibrary.com.]
CONCLUSION
RO AG membrane was characterized and the feasibility of
the removal of phenol was systematically investigated. The
pure water permeability of the AG membrane agrees well
with Darcys law with Lp 5 3.17 L h21 m22 bar21. The reten-
tion order for the salts tested was RNa2 SO4 > RCaCl2 > RNaCl ,
showing that the retention is mainly due to a difference in
diffusion coefficients between different salts. The presence of
charged groups on the membrane surface was confirmed by
the titration method. AG membrane presents also an MWCO
of 145 Da. The model of Spiegler and Kedem showed a
good correlation between experimental and theoretical val-
ues of various salts. This model allowed the calculation of
transport parameters as well as the contribution of the diffu-
sion and the convection for the transfer of solute. These
results suggest that the transfer is purely diffusionnal for AG
membranes. The study of phenol retention by AG membrane
was performed and the results obtained show poor rejection
in all the assays. The retention was shown to depend on the
operating conditions (transmembrane pressure and recovery)
and water characteristics (feed concentration, ionic strength,
and pH).
Phenol retention increases slightly with increasing trans-
membrane pressure. The passage of phenol through mem-
brane was shown to be mainly due to diffusion. This
retention is sensitive to the increase in ionic strength which
causes a progressive neutralization of the negative charge of
the membrane. Increasing feed concentration caused an
increase in phenol retention which depends also on the feed
pH. For neutral pH, the phenol retention did not exceed
65% while it may exceed 85% in alkaline solutions. The
higher phenol rejection may be explained by the electrostatic
repulsion between this compound and the membrane.
Indeed, at higher pH values, the negative charge of mem-
brane surface was enhanced as well as the predominance of
negatively charged phenolate species. Therefore, for the
removal of phenol by polyamide RO membranes, we have
shown that electrostatic repulsion mechanism played a more
important role than size exclusion process. However, in the
case of wastewater treatment, it is not possible to increase
the pH of the solution to reach the maximum phenol
removal by the RO membrane because of salt formation and
deposit problems that can cause fouling of the membranes.
Thus, it is suggested that the combination of membrane and
adsorption processes through a hybrid system or coupling of
two successive membranes would improve phenol rejection.
 The effects of transmembrane pressure, feed concentra-
tion, and solution ionic strength on phenol adsorption to the
surface of the membrane were also investigated. Although
adsorption process was enhanced by an increase in phenol
initial concentration, the adsorption amounts were too low
and did not exceed 23% in all experiments. This suggests
that adsorption contributes slightly to phenol retention for
AG RO membrane.
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