Removal of organic contaminants from water or wastewater with liquefied gases

This study utilized liquefied gases (LG) as extractant to remove various organic contaminants including halogenated hydrocarbons and phenols as well as aromatic compounds from aqueous matrices. Orthogonal experiments were performed to optimize the operating conditions such as temperature, co-solvents and so on. Under favorable conditions, high removal efficiencies can be readily achieved for a great number of representative model organic contaminants, the removal efficiencies for most of the hydrophobic contaminants were greater than 90% in a single extraction stage. Tentative effort was also done for the removal of extracted contaminants from recycled liquefied gases.