A simple and low-energy strategy for the separation of water and acetonitrile |
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Authors: | Mincong Liu Si Huang Linli Tan Jiaxin Pan Shuting Xie Han Zuilhof Bo Chen Ming Ma |
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Institution: | 1. Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology & Traditional Chinese Medicine Research of Ministry of Education and Key Laboratory of Phytochemical R&D of Hunan Province, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, P. R. China;2. Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology & Traditional Chinese Medicine Research of Ministry of Education and Key Laboratory of Phytochemical R&D of Hunan Province, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, P. R. China
Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands |
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Abstract: | As acetonitrile is a widely used solvent for the chemical industry, the recovery of acetonitrile from acetonitrile wastewater is significant for both industrial cost reduction and environmental protection. In this article, a simple, low-energy, and low-cost strategy is proposed for the effective separation of acetonitrile from high-concentration acetonitrile wastewater. The approach is based on a sequential combination of two steps: salt-induced phase separation and hydrophobic filtration. The acetonitrile wastewater was first induced to split into two phases by salt, that is, the acetonitrile-rich phase and the water-rich phase, then the above two phases were poured into the hydrophobic filter paper funnel for the separation. It was shown that NaCl is a suitable salting-out reagent, and that hydrophobic filter papers—obtained from modification by butyltrichlorosilane and octyltrichlorosilane were the optimal choice for hydrophobic filtration. The salt-induced phase separation process is able to increase the volume fraction of acetonitrile in the acetonitrile-rich phase up to 92%. The acetonitrile-rich phase can pass through the hydrophobic filter paper, whereas the water-rich phase was intercepted. The hydrophobic filter paper retained strong hydrophobicity and high acetonitrile-separating capacity after 3 months storage, or upon immersion in acetonitrile-water mixtures for 12 h, or applied for 25 consecutive separations. |
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Keywords: | acetonitrile-water separation azeotrope of acetonitrile-water hydrophobic filtration low-energy consumption salt-induced phase separation |
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