Boron Separation Processes
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Boron Separation Processes NALAN KABAY Ege University, Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Izmir, Turkey MAREK BRYJAK Wrocław University of Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, Department of Polymer and Carbon Materials, Wrocław, Poland NIDAL HILAL Center for Water Advanced Tehnologies and Environmental Research (CWATER), College of Engineering, Swansea University, Swansea, United Kingdom Amsterdam • Boston • Heidelberg • London • New York Oxford • Paris • San Diego • San Francisco • Sydney • Tokyo Elsevier Radarweg 29, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, Netherlands The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, UK 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451, USA Copyright Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. 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To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. ISBN: 978-0-444-63454-2 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress For information on all Elsevier publications visit our web site at http://store.eslevier.com Printed and bound in Poland EDITORS’ PREFACE Due to the increasing demand for delivery of safe potable or irrigation water and limited available water resources, many suppliers have to face a problem to find some alternatives urgently. Hence, seawater, brackish water, and contaminated surface waters have become a target as new water resources for these activities which need fresh water. However, these alternatives may contain some trace contaminants that have not been noted so far and their removal has been not considered at the technological level. Boron is one of the target species in the list of such unwanted contaminants. This element is found in seawater at the level of 4e7 mg/L, depending on the region, and in underground water at higher levels. The World Health Organization (WHO) set the limit for boron as 0.3 mg/L in drinking water in 1993. However, in 2011, the Drinking-Water Quality Committee of WHO revised the Boron Guideline Value for potable water as 2.4 mg/L. A major limiting factor for the presence of boron in water is related to the possibility of plant damage rather than human health-related concerns. Although boron is a vital element for plant growth in trace quantities as a micronutrient and it is delivered as fertilizer, it can be detrimental to some plants at higher concentrations. According to the published literature, excess boron reduces fruit yield, induces premature ripening, and causes massive leaf damage. Therefore, boron limits for agricultural water is still kept between 0.3 and 1 mg/L, depending on the country. The main goals of this book are to focus the attention on boron-related problems and to present some challenges for safe water production in order to invoke appropriate actions in efficient innovative directions. For these reasons, this book is divided into four sections that show the impact of boron for our life, adsorption methods for water deboronation, the use of membrane processes for boron removal from water, and recent studies on process optimization. SECTION 1dBORON IN THE ENVIRONMENT Chapter 1 introduces the history of boron discovery, the environmental chemistry of the element and its biogeochemistry. The reader gets information on the impact of nature to bind and transform boron, as well as the toxicology of this element. Chemistry of boron in aqueous solution is the subject of Chapter 2. The authors discussed the distribution of boron on the Earth and the paths that boron enters into the aquatic environment. Contents of boron in surface waters, underground waters, and seawater are presented to give the general layout of the boron problem. Special attention vii viii Editors’ Preface is directed to the chemistry of boron containing compounds and the legal regulations of the boron concentration in potable water. Boron has been considered to have a negative effect on animal reproduction and development. However, boron-mediated unfavorable effects in males have not been proven for humans. It is the subject of discussion presented in Chapter 3, where the authors, based on the recently published epidemiological studies, have provided valuable data for highly boron-exposed workers in China and Turkey. The results indicated that human boron exposure, even at the highest rate, are too low to reach the blood concentrations that would cause adverse effects on the reproduction system. SECTION 2dREMOVAL OF BORON BY ION EXCHANGE AND ADSORPTION PROCESSES This section combines chapters dealing with one of the oldest methods, which is adsorption for mitigation of boron level in aqueous solutions. Chapter 4 presents mechanisms of boron sorption on ion exchangers and gives the fundamental information on sorption equilibrium and kinetics. The reader can find there some data on the formation of polyborates and their impact on ion exchange processes. Authors of Chapter 5 focused on the use of chelating adsorbents for boron recovery. They describe properties of chelating resins and fibers bearing N-methyl-D-glucamine ligands. Using the mechanism of boron chelation, the authors elucidate such sorbent properties as adsorption rate, pH-related uptake, and adsorption capacity. The case studies presented in the chapter show application of the described materials for boron recovery from geothermal water and salt lake brines. The use of natural inorganic materials for boron removal is the subject of Chapter 6. The authors provided plenty of data on the adsorption of boron on different minerals. This chapter also addresses some studies of organic natural matter. Some data on soil or humic acids sorption are delivered at the end of the chapter. Chapter 7 is dedicated to the description of the kind of chelating materials containing iminobis-propylenediol ligands for boron binding. Three forms of tailored adsorbent are presented: linear polymer, crosslinked beads, and hairy function resins. These materials can be used at different applications such as polymer-enhanced ultrafiltration systems, batch adsorption, and fix bed columns. SECTION 3dREMOVAL OF BORON BY MEMBRANE PROCESSES The chapters in this section describe the use of membrane processes for boron removal. Chapter 8 can be considered as an introduction to the other contributions. It gives an insight to the direct use of RO membranes for desalination, application of UF and MF Editors’ Preface ix membranes for systems when boron is complexed/adsorbed on coupling agents or the use of other membrane processes. The supplementary data on the use of various membrane systems for desalination of seawater are presented in Chapter 9. The authors discussed the integrated systems, ion- exchange systems, hybrid systems, ED systems, and others. The final SWOT analysis allows us to understand the way to make the final selection of the best system. The next chapter, Chapter 10, deals with details on various hybrid systems. It presents some fundamentals on membrane-enhanced hybrid processes when coupling agents form complexes with boron and, as large substances, are removed by membrane filtration. Such hybrid systems as molecule-enhanced membrane separation (MEMS), polymer-enhanced ultrafiltration (PEUF), micellar-enhanced ultrafiltration (MEUF), colloid-enhanced ultrafiltration (CEUF), and suspension-enhanced microfiltration (SEMF) are discussed. Some hints for regeneration of coupling agents are also presented. Chapter 11 is dedicated to the application of ion exchange membranes for water deboranation. It discusses the effects of membranes, boron bearing species and process parameters. Three methods are considered by the authors: electrodialysis (ED), Donnan dialysis (DD) and electrodeionization (EDI). Finally, the chapter provides cost evaluation for processes employing ion-exchange membranes. Chapter 12 deals with boron removal from geothermal water. In this chapter, application of membrane separation methods such as reverse osmosis,