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Photocatalytic demulsification of oil/water emulsions containing nonionic surfactant

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Abstract

Separation of oil-water (OW) emulsions is investigated using a photocatalytic demulsification approach. Experiments were conducted using two types of photocatalysts, namely, ZnO and TiO2. The emulsion samples were prepared with oil to water ratios of 1:3, 1:1, and 3:1 and using nonionic surfactant Tween 20 as an emulsifier. The demulsification efficiency was determined using a direct time varying phase separation measurement, while dynamic light scattering (DLS) and microscope imaging (MI) were used to determine the change in emulsion droplets size. The investigation results showed that all the emulsions were destabilized and separated within 30–90 min with demulsification efficiency that ranged from 38 to 90%. On the other hand, untreated control samples remained stable with no phase separation for more than 24 h. For most of the studied experimental conditions, TiO2 nanoparticles gave better demulsification results than ZnO. Modeling of the batch demulsification kinetics for both systems agreed satisfactorily with the experimental measurements. This could allow its further extension towards design of continuous processes for potential implementation in treatment of industrial oily wastewaters.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the American University of Sharjah Enhanced Faculty Research grant EFRG18-BBR-CEN-03.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, American University of Sharjah, P.O.Box: 26666, Sharjah, UAE

    Asma Shubair, Hilal Al-Salih, Rana Sabouni, Sara Hassanin, Soha Salem, Talah Zeno, Bassam El Taher & Awais Zaka

  2. Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada

    Hassan Gomaa

Authors
  1. Asma Shubair
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  2. Hilal Al-Salih
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  3. Rana Sabouni
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  4. Hassan Gomaa
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  5. Sara Hassanin
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  7. Talah Zeno
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  8. Bassam El Taher
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  9. Awais Zaka
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Contributions

Asma Shubair and Hilal Al-Salih: investigation, formal analysis, visualization, writing-original draft

Rana Sabouni: conceptualization, funding acquisition, methodology, resources, project administration, supervision, writing-review and editing

Hassan Gomaa: writing-review and editing, methodology, conceptualization

Sara Hassanin: formal analysis

Soha Salem: investigation, validation

Talah Zeno: investigation, visualization

Bassam El Taher: investigation, visualization

Awais Zaka: validation

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rana Sabouni.

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Shubair, A., Al-Salih, H., Sabouni, R. et al. Photocatalytic demulsification of oil/water emulsions containing nonionic surfactant. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 13124–13132 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11541-1

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