Abstract

To remove metal ions and/or organic molecules from aqueous solutions is a difficulty commonly encountered in the treatment of contaminated water. Traditional ultrafiltration is usually used to separate the high molecular weight molecules and is ineffective in removing heavy metal ions or organic molecules with small molecular weights. Micellar-enhanced ultrafiltration (MEUF) is an effective technique to remove contaminants that traditional ultrafiltration cannot remove. Micellar-enhanced ultrafiltration makes use of the micellar properties of surfactant solutions to remove dissolved ions and/or organics from aqueous streams. Chemical surfactants have proven effective. However compared to biosurfactants they are toxic and create a secondary problem since part of the surfactant monomers frequently leak through the pores of membrane filters. This study is an attempt to examine the effect of rhamnolipid biosurfactant, JBR 425, on contaminant removal from aqueous solutions. The required quantity of rhamnolipid to remove the copper ions as a heavy metal pollutant and benzene molecules as an organic pollutant separately has been determined for different concentrations of pollutants. This quantity, the molar ratio (MR), was 6.25 to obtain a 100% rejection for the copper ions and 1.33 to obtain the same rejection of benzene molecules. When copper and benzene were mixed, these molar ratios have been either improved as in benzene molar ratio which was decreased from 1.33 to 0.56 or remained the same as in copper molar ratio but in all cases rhamnolipid JBR 425 proved of excellent efficiency in the removal of contaminants and a rejection of 100% has been obtained for copper and benzene either separately or simultaneously which is the objective of this study