Removal of unsaturated aliphatic carboxylic acid from aqueous effluent using quaternary amine

Abstract

Maleic acid, present in the effluent from organic intermediate producing industries, is an industrially important raw material. Its use in manufacture of alkyd and polyester resins, surface coatings, lubricant additives, plasticizers, co-polymers and agricultural chemicals, makes it necessary to explore for best possible techniques to recover it from aqueous solutions. The present work investigates the recovery of maleic acid from aqueous solution at ambient temperature. N–Methyl–n, n–dioctyloctan–1–ammonium chloride, (commercially known as Aliquat 336) is used as an extractant with three different diluents, belonging to different chemical classes: an aromatic hydrocarbon, a ketone, and an acetate. The chemical extraction results are reported in the terms of distribution coefficient, degree of extraction, and loading ratios. The results were modeled by mass action equilibria model as well as differential evolution technique. Differential evolution algorithm has been prepared. The model and experimental observations were compared and fairly good agreement was observed.