Sciencemadness Discussion Board

H2O2 through a Reverse Osmosis Membrane?

VeritasC&E - 30-8-2022 at 04:39



Could H2O2 be passed through a cheap reverse osmosis membrane meant for home water purification in order to significantly decrease trace metal ion levels?


Potential problems I see are:

What are membranes made of and will the membrane material(s) react with H2O2? (biggest issue by far)

Will a membrane discriminate H2O2 vs H2O to any appreciable degree?

Is the mild pressure (2-5 Bars) the H2O2 solution will be subjected to before passing the membrane something to be concerned about?

Will this significantly decrease trace metal amounts even when such traces are fairly low (>5 ppm Combined) in the input material?

Will the decrease in trace metals be enough to compensate for / increase stability in midst of "stabilizers" additives being mostly discarded through the process?

Is the concentration of metal ions with the H2O2 containing effluent of any concern (even if the input H2O2 is clean enough)?

Could H2O2 be expected to significantly decompose in the process?

[Edited on 30-8-2022 by VeritasC&E]

Lionel Spanner - 30-8-2022 at 10:44

If you're worried about trace metals, etidronic acid (around 0.1% w/w) is a much simpler way to remove them. It's widely used in industrial peroxide, and in consumer products.

VeritasC&E - 30-8-2022 at 12:31

Quote: Originally posted by Lionel Spanner  
If you're worried about trace metals, etidronic acid (around 0.1% w/w) is a much simpler way to remove them. It's widely used in industrial peroxide, and in consumer products.


Thank you for this suggestion. I didn't know about the existence of etidronic acid and it's useful to learn something new.

As per my reading on it it would chelate transition metal ions while (per my understanding) not precipitating but remaining in solution. It has its utility to prevent catalysis (and thus inhibit H2O2 degradation) by said ions but as far as I understand it doesn't radically help eliminating them from solution (thus, while complexing these metal ions probably has great utility in increasing the shelf-life of H2O2, these metal ions would still contaminate whatever product H2O2 is used to produce; which isn't equivalent to removing them all-together).

Lionel Spanner - 31-8-2022 at 07:03

"Removed" is the wrong term, but they'd be rendered unreactive by chelation, as would calcium and magnesium. If you want to remove them completely, an ion-exchange resin is probably the best tool for the job.

Out of interest, what's the intended use of the peroxide?

VeritasC&E - 2-9-2022 at 02:39

Quote: Originally posted by Lionel Spanner  
"Removed" is the wrong term, but they'd be rendered unreactive by chelation, as would calcium and magnesium. If you want to remove them completely, an ion-exchange resin is probably the best tool for the job.

Out of interest, what's the intended use of the peroxide?


Dissolve high purity metals into acetates.

Ion exchange resins is part of the industry's portfolio of products designed to submit science to the rule of (fake) money. I'd rather not participate in that unless I absolutely have to.

You haven't answered any of my questions about RO Membranes for H2O2 purification from metals.