Preparation Of Copper Foam And Eutectic Separation Of Phenols-Oil Mixture

Due to their high strength to weight ratio and high specific surfacearea, solid metallic foams have attracted a considerable amount ofattention for use in separation systems, engineering materials andbatteries. Gas bubble dynamic template with additive(s) present in theelectrodeposition process is a convenient and lower cost method toprepare metal foams. Our work did not use addicives, and investigatedthe effect of pressure on the formation of highly porous3D structures ofcopper foams.Copper foam was electrodeposited from0.20M CuSO4in0.70MH2SO4on copper foil by galvanostatic electrodeposition at a currentdensity of0.5A/cm2to the substrate at different pressures of0.02MPa,0.10MPa,0.40MPa,0.80MPa for60s. With increasing pressure, thenumber of formed pores increases, the average pore size of copper foamdecreases, and the thickness of copper foam decreases. Thispressure-changed method may provide a new idea of controllinghydrogen evolution during metal electrodeposition processes. During theabove experiment, we found that quaternary ammonium salts can formdeep eutectic solvent with phenols, which provides a new way to separate phenols with oil.The present commercialized method to separate phenol compoundsfrom tar oil or liquefied oil is aqueous alkaline solutions with lots ofdisadvantages: the use of large amounts of both strong alkalis and acidsand the production of excessive amounts of waste water containingphenols. Therefore, a method is sort to separate phenols from oil mixturesusing a non-aqueous method to avoid strong alkalis and strong acids.Ammonium salts have been used to efficiently separate phenolsfrom modeling oils (hexane, toluene and p-xylene as model oil) viaforming eutectic solvents. Ammonium salts, especially choline chloride(ChCl) were found to be successful as eutectic media for separatingphenols (phenol and cresols) from oils (hexane, toluene and p-xylene).ChCl shows a short eutectic equilibrium time less than3min and anin-sensitivity to eutectic temperature. Significantly, no ChCl was found inthe upper oil phase at equilibrium with the eutectic solvent. ChCl in theeutectic solvent can be recovered by diethyl ether and reused withoutmass loss and reduction in separation efficiency. ChCl were also used toseparate phenolic compounds in coal tar oil and coal liquefied oil viaforming eutectic solvents, which were found to be successful as eutecticmedia for separating phenols with phenol-removals of76%. ChCl in theeutectic solvent can be recovered by diethyl ether and reused withoutmass loss and reduction in separation efficiency. Compared with the traditional methods to separate phenol compounds from oil, this proposedmethod involving the formation of eutectic solvent with ammonium saltsavoids the use of alkali and acid and the production of phenol containingwaste water.