Cationic Surfactants as Regulators in Paper Separation of 2‐Nitrophenol and 2,4,6‐Trinitrophenol in Water

The chemical pollutants 2‐nitrophenol (2‐NP) and 2,4,6‐trinitrophenol (2,4,6‐TNP) were studied for their separation from water by the paper capillary permeation adsorption technique by the use of the four cationic surfactants dodecyltrimethylammonium chloride (DTAC), tetradecyltrimethylammonium bromide (TTAB), cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) as regulators. The effect of pH and the concentration of surfactant on the separatability have been investigated. A nearly 100% separatability was obtained for each pollutant at its optimum pH and surfactant concentration. It was shown that the separation was accomplished via surface adsorption onto the fibers of paper. The change in separatability at basic pH 11 with surfactant variety was analyzed. The result shows that the surfactant with a longer chain alkyl group is more effective for the separation of 2‐NP and the surfactants with 16 carbons in the long chain alkyl group are most effective. The surfactants with 12 carbons or more in the long alkyl group but containing no aromatic group such as pyridyl group are equally effective for accomplishing an efficient separation of 2,4,6‐TNP. Selective separation of 2‐NP from an admixture of 2‐NP plus 2,4,6‐TNP was attempted. The optimum surfactant for each pollutant was tested with seawater for removing the pollutant. The goal of this study is to search for an optimum cationic surfactant and optimum separation conditions for nitrophenols.