• Membrane Aromatic Recovery System (MARS)

Organic acids and bases from industrial processes are often toxic and inhibitory to biological treatment. With tighter legislative control on industrial processes and the economic drive to recover residual costly products from process streams, MET’s patented Membrane Aromatic Recovery System (MARS) can significantly clean up your waste streams and recover your high value compounds.

The benefits of removing valuable but toxic organic chemicals from wastewater streams in a form in which they can be re-used are clear – it avoids discharging the chemicals into the environment, and, since the chemicals can be re-used, may even pay for itself - a win-win technology! Patented by MET, MARS can be applied to any organic molecule that exhibits an acidic or basic functionality.

MARS can be applied to any organic molecule that exhibits acidic or basic functionality. So,
If you need to efficiently recover valuable chemicals in pure form…
If you want a simple system without the need for vacuum or high pressure equipment...

… couple MET’s MARS technology to your process!

How MARS works:

Schematic for the recovery of phenol

MARS is based on membrane extraction of the aromatic molecules into a stripping solution where they are converted into an ionised form and concentrated. They may then be recovered by a simple pH adjustment process. The membrane separating layer allows permeation of the organic species but is impermeable to ionised species. Therefore, once the organic molecule diffuses across the membrane into the stripping solution and is ionised in the stripping solution, it cannot diffuse back into the wastewater. The membrane serves to avoid mixing of the wastewater and the stripping solution.

The concept is shown above for phenol, but may be applied equally to bases such as aniline and pyridine derivatives by simply reversing the roles of acid and base.

MET has developed process scale systems for application to flow-rates up to 50 m3 d-1, at organic compound removals of up to 99%.

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Commercial Applications

What does MET's MARS technology do for your process

1. Process scale systems for application flow rates up to 50 m-3 d-1
   
   
2. Up to 99% recovery of organic acid and bases.
   
   
3. Recovered materials of sufficient purity to be reused in process.

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