Nickel and Zinc Removal by Complexation-Ultrafiltration Method

Abstract

There are a lot of toxic materials in several industrial wastewater streams, for example heavy metals (i.e. Zn2+ and Ni2+) in the wastes of electroplating industries, which should be removed before recycling or discharging these aqueous solutions into surface water. One of the methods for removing toxic metals is the complexation enhanced ultrafiltration process that might be an effective membrane technique. This method was tested 2 types of polyether-sulphone – PES – membranes with different cut-off and several complexation agents (polyethylene-imine – PEI –, polyethylene-glycol – PEG –, and 2 types of polyamido-amin dendrimers – PAMAM) for removal these heavy metals from model solutions by a membrane filtration method, which worked in cross-flow mode.