engleski

Treatment of wastewater polluted by heavy metals using biosorbents

Anthropogenic activities such as industry, mining and various agro-technical measures in agricultural production lead to an increase in the concentration of heavy metals in the environment, especially in soil and water. Such waters must therefore be treated in order to be suitable for human consumption and for use in industry and agriculture. In order to find the most economically viable method of water treatment [1], the possibility of using solid wastes and by-products (olive pits, olive pomace pellets, residues of sea urchin, cherry pits and sour cherry pits) from local facilities for food production and processing as biosorbents for the removal of zinc from aqueous solutions of different initial zinc concentrations (92.40 mg/L and 27.14 mg/L) was examined. The results showed that removal efficiency for the initial zinc concentration of 92.40 mg/L was up to ≈ 20%, with the best removal on sour cherry and olive pits. For lower initial concentration of 27.14 mg/L, the maximum removal efficiency was ≈ 60%, also with the best efficacy on olive and sour cherry pits. Zinc removal efficiency increased with decreasing initial zinc concentration. However, residual zinc concentration (up to ≈ 87 mg/L for the higher, and ≈ 18 mg/L for the lower initial concentration) in treated water exceeded the maximum permissible level of 2 mg/L for discharge into surface waters and public sewerage system [2]. The biosorbents used have the potential for treatment of zinc contaminated water, at least as a pre-treatment stage, prior using of higher cost conventional sorbents as an activated carbon or ion exchange resins. This could reduce costs of water treatment and would also find a useful application of the generated solid agri-food wastes and by-products.

Biosorption ; Agri-food wastes and by-products ; Heavy metals ; Zinc ; Water treatment

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