Heavy metals like arsenic, copper, cadmium, chromium, nickel, zinc, lead, and mercury are major pollutants of fresh water reservoirs because of their toxic, non-biodegradable, and persistent nature. The industrial growth is the major source of heavy metals introducing such pollutants into different segments of the environment including air, water, soil, and biosphere. Heavy metals are easily absorbed by fishes and vegetables due to their high solubility in the aquatic environments. Hence, they may accumulate in the human body by means of the food chain. Various methods have been developed and used for water and wastewater treatment to decrease heavy metal concentrations. These technologies include membrane filtration, ion-exchange, adsorption, chemical precipitation, nanotechnology treatments, electrochemical and advanced oxidation processes. In this review, the methods as well as their mechanisms and efficiency are discussed.

Removal of Heavy Metals from Industrial Wastewaters: A Review

State-of-the-art membrane based CO2 separation using mixed matrix membranes (MMMs): An overview on current status and future directions

Thermally stable polymers for advanced high-performance gas separation membranes

H2-selective mixed matrix membranes modeling using ANFIS, PSO-ANFIS, GA-ANFIS

More than 88 billion barrels of wastewater are produced yearly in the world from gas and oil production. Given the rising demand for drinkable water, there is a need for advanced purification processes. Here we review membrane filtration processes used in the gas and oil production for wastewater treatment, with focus on microfiltration, nanofiltration, ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, forward osmosis, membrane distillation, and electrodialysis.

Membrane filtration of wastewater from gas and oil production

Mathematical modeling and numerical simulation of gas separation by means of polymeric membrane contactors is presented. The finite element method is implemented for numerical simulation. COMSOL Multiphysics is used for simulation. Continuity equations are solved via computational fluid dynamics techniques based on the finite element method. A laminar velocity profile is applied for the solvent. Velocity distribution of the gas flow in the contactor is obtained by Happel's model. The predictions of percent CO2 removal obtained by the modeling were compared with the experimental values from literature for CO2 removal from CO2/N2 gas mixtures with amines. The modeling predictions were in good agreement with experimental data for different values of liquid flow rates.

M. Jafari

Papers

Implementation of the Finite Element Method for Simulation of Mass Transfer in Membrane Contactors