Abstract-The quality of the surface water of Caño Correa and its influence on the coral reefs of the Corales del Rosario and San Bernardo National Natural Park located in the waters of the Colombian Caribbean were analyzed. Multivariate analysis of the water quality data-set was performed through PCA. The statistical analysis showed that the nutrients are at levels close to eutrophication, the solids exceed the levels established by the regulations and the salinity presents abrupt changes in their levels, all these factors affect the health of the marine ecosystems. The principal component analysis identified four components that explain 67.27% of the total variance of the data. The first factor represents the agroindustrial contribution, the second factor represents pollution by minerals and organic matter, the third factor is due to wastewater-fertilization and the fourth factor is clearly microbiological.
In recent years, water quality issues related with hazardous wastewater and toxic substances have attracted worldwide attention. Cyanide is a major toxin in wastewater resulting from a diversity of industries, including gold mining. Cyanide has adverse health effects on people as well as other living organisms. The toxic effects of cyanide are so important to cause nerve damage and thyroid glands malfunctioning. In this paper, the degradation of cyanide in waters resulting from gold mining activity was carried out in a batch system with two catalysts TiO2 Degussa P-25 and TiO2 doped with copper heteropolyimolybdate, that was synthesized in laboratory and characterized by FTIR and XRD. Assays showed a degradation of 98.55% with a concentration of 0.3 g/L of TiO2 and 97.17% with TiO2 doped with 1% of Cu heteropolyimolybdate (1 g/L) in 50 min of reaction. A real mining sample showed a cyanide degradation of 55.76% with TiO2 in 240 min of reaction. All the assays were made applying photodegradation using a 125-Watt mercury lamp as source. These results are encouraging to use this technology for the removal of cyanide coming from highly contaminated aqueous effluents.
Highly toxic cyanides are among the most persistent chemical compounds in effluents, these chemicals are used in several industrial sectors and particularly in mining industry for the extraction of gold. Cyanides frequently appear at low levels in water, deteriorating its quality. In this paper a degradation of 55.76% and 62.99% was obtained using TiO2 catalyst and TiO2 doped with Cu heteropololybdate respectively in 360 min of reaction, applying photodegradation with a 125 watt mercury lamp source. Most of the trials showed that the degraded compound kinetics may be adjusted to a pseudo first order model.
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