Recycling of Spent Reverse Osmosis Membranes for Second Use in the Clarification of Wet-Process Phosphoric Acid

Various techniques have been used to “clean-up” wet-process phosphoric acid such as precipitation, flotation and adsorption. To address the potential of membrane processes in the phosphoric acid clarification process, this study explores the benefits of membrane techniques as a green separation technique for phosphoric acid clarification in an eco-efficient way through the use of recycling spent reverse osmosis membrane. Regenerated membrane was used to study the phosphoric acid clarification at a laboratory scale. They were immersed in an oxidizer for at most seven days. The samples were characterized systematically before immersion in an oxidant media. In this study, the potential to regenerate spent membranes and application of this media to clarify the 29% P2O5 phosphoric acid was demonstrated. This study shows, through experiments, that the reverse osmosis (RO) membranes could achieve a rejection of 70% and 61% for suspended solid and organic matter, respectively. These promising results will pave the way for implementation of these membranes in phosphoric acid treatment. Moreover, besides being economically advantageous, the use of the spent membrane is likely an environmentally friendly route (no waste, no organic solvent and effluent to be regenerated later on).