A New Hybrid Flotation—Microfiltration Cell

Abstract

The investigated hybrid cell combines the advantages of both flotation and membrane separation, while overcoming their limitations and having as an outcome clean water from a industrial wastewater. Hence, metals recovery from dilute aqueous solutions was a promising application of this innovative process, further to solid/liquid separation. The specific objective was to apply the process for the efficient separation of effluents containing metals (here, zinc). The main examined parameters were the following: the metal initial concentration, flotation surfactant applied, and air flowrate. The successful contribution of precipitate flotation was highlighted, while the observed metal removals were of the order of ∼100%.

Keywords:

• Heavy/toxic metals
• industrial wastewaters
• separation
• removal

Acknowledgements

Many thanks are due to Dr. Valko Mavrov (upt, Saarbrücken, Germany) for supplying the membranes and experience with them; also, to Dr. Tasos Zouboulis and Dr. George Gallios (AUTh) for their help, in many ways. This work was financially supported in part by the Greek Ministry of Education (Program Pythagoras).