COMBINED MEMBRANE TECHNOLOGIES FOR REMOVING HEAVY METALS FROM EFFLUENTS RESULTING FROM LEATHER INDUSTRY

摘要

The invention relates to a process for removing chromium, zinc and nickel from the effluents resulting from leather industry. According to the invention, the process consists in chemically treating the effluents in an installation provided with a microfiltration membrane, passing the permeate through a reverse osmosis membrane at a pressure of 2 bar, the resulting solution being subjected to membrane separation in emulsion obtained from a mixture of surface-active emulsifiers from the bolaamphiphile class and a classic surface-active agent in a ratio of 1:1:1 and a concentration of 0.5...3%, for the heavy metals there being used a specific quaternary ammonium salt-type complexing agent when two phases are obtained, namely an emulsion type membrane phase which retains the heavy metals and a purified effluent phase.