Wastewater and waste technological solutions with high salt content treatment from metal ions and organic compounds by the sorption method in the reactor

Wastewater from chemical, metallurgical, processing, enrichment and galvanic industries is characterized by increased content of heavy metal ions (HM), extremely high salt organic pollutants content. Heavy metals in industrial wastewater are hazardous for ecosystems due to their non-biodegradability and toxicity. Various methods have been developed to remove HM ions from industrial wastewater. The adsorption method remains one of the effective ones due to its ease of operation, cost-effectiveness, wide range of available adsorbents and ability to remove both organic and inorganic pollutants. In this paper the background salinity effect on the copper, nickel and zinc ions removal from model wastewater by adsorption process was studied. Activated carbon BAU-A was used to extract HM ions from a model wastewater solution. Sodium chloride and sodium sulfate were used in different concentrations (up to 200 g/L) at pH 2.5. We found that maximum Cu(II) removal efficiency was 97% with 50 g/L NaCl content. The maximum Ni(II) and Zn(II) adsorption (58 and 75% respectively) was in solution with 50 g/L and 150 g/L NaCl+Na2SO4 (1:1), respectively, after 2-hour sorption process in the reactor. The study examined the effect of time on sorption on the efficiency of the metal ion extraction process. The maximum Cu(II) sorption was after 3 hours of the sorption process and it was 98% in Na2SO4 solution (100 g/L). The study showed that the extraction efficiency by sorption decreases in the Cu – Zn – Ni series. The salt content and sorption time has significant effect on adsorption of HM ions.