Treatment of Fumaric Acid Wastewater Using Integrated Process of Hollow-Fiber Supported Liquid Membrane-Strip Dispersion with Reverse Osmosis

In this paper, the integrated process of series connected hollow-fiber supported liquid membrane-strip dispersion (HFSLM-SD) with reverse osmosis (RO) was designed and used to recover fumaric acid (FA) from waste effluents and treat FA wastewater. The results showed that FA could be almost completely recovered by this integrated process, and TOC of wastewater finally decreased to the environment acceptable level. In addition, the continuous operation of wastewater treatment was implemented by the integrated process. After FA wastewater was extracted by six series connected HFSLM-SD modules, its TOC decreased from 35625 mg/L to 1000 mg/L, and the TOC removal rate reached 97.17%. Then the effluent from HFSLM-SD was further treated by RO, and TOC of permeate in RO was below 100 mg/L. The total TOC removal rate of the integrated process was as high as 99.7%. Furthermore, the effect of the osmotic pressure of RO process on TOC in the feed was obtained. The investigation of RO membrane fouling revealed that washing process was necessary because of the serious fouling in RO system.