Research Information System
Desalination and Water Treatment, vol.315, pp.251-259, 2023 (SCI-Expanded)
In this study, the pretreatment of olive oil mill wastewater with a laboratory-scale ultrafiltration membrane was investigated. The Box–Behnken statistical experimental design method was used to investigate the effect of ultrafiltration on permeate flux, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and color removal efficiency. With this method, the effects of three independent variables (pH, pressure, and ultrafiltration time) on the response functions (flux, COD and color removal efficiency) were examined, and the optimum conditions were determined and presented in the study. The Design-Expert 13.0 program was used for statistical analyses. As a result of the experimental studies, it was observed that the ultrafiltration time did not have a significant effect on all three response functions. The highest permeate flux of 30.4 L/m2·h was obtained at pH = 10 and 3 bar pressure, while the highest COD removal efficiency (48%) was obtained at pH = 2 and 1 bar pressure. The only effective parameter for color removal efficiency was pH. The highest color removal efficiency was obtained as 77% at pH = 2. It has been proven that the Box–Behnken experimental design method gives statistically reliable results for flux, COD, and color removal efficiency in ultrafiltration of olive mill wastewater. An analysis of variance was also done within the scope of the study. The predicted and observed correlation coefficients (R2) were found to be 0.9875 for permeate flux, 0.9952 for COD removal, and 0.9997 for color removal efficiency. This shows that the estimations made by the response function and the experimental results are in agreement, and the method used is statistically suitable.