Treatment of Water Contaminated with Cr(VI) Using Bacterial Cellulose and FeCl3 in a Continuous System

In today’s world, environmental projects that contribute to the protection of water resources are needed due to the ongoing deterioration caused by the discharge of heavy metals, especially chromium. One way to investigate this problem is to use adsorbent biomasses, such as bacterial cellulose. This cellulose is increasingly popular due to its ability to chemisorb heavy metals present in water. Furthermore, the addition of iron chloride to this biomass improves its performance, creating more active sites and thus increasing its heavy metal adsorption capacity. Due to the promising results, pilot-scale research with physical models in fixed biomass columns has gained relevance, and adsorption isotherms could be used to adjust these models and optimize the design of these prototypes. For this reason, a project to treat water contaminated with Cr(VI) using bacterial cellulose and FeCl3 in a continuous system was created. Experiments were conducted with different concentrations, and treatment conditions were established based on the isotherms. Subsequently, elutions with EDTA were performed up to six times to allow biomass reuse in the continuous system with a bacterial cellulose column containing iron chloride. This achieved a total adsorption capacity of 626 mg/g, summing the six treatment cycles. The results provide practical parameters and evidence to support future studies to scale up and optimize Cr(VI) effluent treatment.