Treatment of wastewater containing Pb and Fe using ion-exchange techniques

Abstract

Treatment of wastewater containing lead and iron was examined using two different ion-exchange resins namely Duolite ES 467 (containing amino-phosphonic functional groups) and a chelating ion-exchange resin (containing hydroxamic acid functional groups). Initially different sorption parameters such as contact time, pH, concentrations of sorbent, sorbate and chloride ion were studied. The sorption kinetics was observed to be fast and equilibrium could be reached within 30 min. Lead sorption efficiency increased with increase in pH whereas the opposite trend was observed with iron. The presence of chloride ions greatly reduced the Pb sorption efficiency in the case of Duolite ES 467. Column studies were carried out to recover Pb and Fe individually using Duolite ES 467 resin. The maximum uptake of Pb at pH 2 and 3 was observed to be 11.63 and 33.96 g dm(-3) of resin respectively. Similarly, for Fe at pH 2 and 3 the uptake was observed to be 10.07 and 6.96 g dm(-3) of resin respectively. In the presence of chloride ions, column studies were carried out using Duolite ES 467 for iron and chelating ion-exchange resin containing hydroxamic acid functional groups for lead sorption. Hydroxamic acid resin's loading capacity remains constant for at least up to 20 cycles. (c) 2005 Society of Chemical Industry.