Development of phenols recovery process with novel solvent methyl propyl ketone for extracting dihydric phenols from coal gasification wastewater

Abstract Industrial application shows that dihydric phenols especially hydroquinone is a key problem for coal chemical wastewater treatment. The efficient removal of hydroquinone has high significance for coal chemical industry cleaner production. In this study, the efficient phenols recovery process had been developed. The novel solvent methyl propyl ketone (MPK) was proposed by using the method of structural characteristics integrated computer-aided molecular design (CAMD). The removal efficiencies of MPK with two common solvents diisopropyl ether (DIPE) and methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) were compared. The removal efficiency of total phenols can be increased to as high as 99.6% by using MPK, which was better than that using DIPE or MIBK. Moreover, the concentration of total phenols can be reduced from more than 5000 mg/L to less than 100 mg/L. Simulation of phenols recovery process using MPK were conducted to determine the operation parameters. Replacing MIBK with MPK can be applied in industry without any change the size of existing device. The treatment cost estimate showed that the process with solvent MPK had good economic feasibility considering the economic value of crude phenols.