Wastewater Remediation: Utilization of Environmentally Responsive Polymeric Surfactants for the Sequestration of p-Cresol

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-16-1999

Department

Polymers and High Performance Materials

Abstract

It is well known that hydrophobically-modified water soluble polymers form ordered hydrophobic microdomains in aqueous media and may serve as sequestration sites for various water foulants including surfactants and hydrocarbons. In this work, equilibrium dialysis experiments are utilized to determine the binding isotherms of p-cresol to the triblock surfactant, Pluronic F127, as a function of polymer concentration and temperature. Binding of the model water foulant to the polymeric surfactant occurs when the polymer resides in a multimeric conformation that is temperature dependent. At 5°C the polymer resides in a monomeric conformation, but the presence of the foulant facilitates a unimer to multimer transition that leads to increased foulant binding. Positive cooperativity is shown to exist through Scatchard analysis of the data. Ultrafiltration experiments utilizing hollow fiber membranes indicate that the polymer-foulant interactions are increased by the shear forces commonly utilized in ultrafiltration applications.

Publication Title

ACS Symposium Series

Volume

740

First Page

113

Last Page

122

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