Copper doped zeolite composite for antimicrobial activity and heavy metal removal from waste water

Abstract

Background The existence of heavy metals and coliform bacteria contaminants in aquatic system of Akaki river basin, a sub city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia has become a public concern as human population increases and land development continues. Hence, it is the right time to design treatment technologies that can handle multiple pollutants. Results In this study, we prepared a synthetic zeolites and copper doped zeolite composite adsorbents as cost effective and simple approach to simultaneously remove heavy metals and total coliforms from wastewater of Akaki river. The synthesized copper–zeolite X composite was obtained by ion exchange method of copper ions into zeolites frameworks. Iodine test, XRD, FTIR and autosorb IQ automated gas sorption analyzer were used to characterize the adsorbents. The mean concentrations of Cd, Cr, and Pb in untreated sample were 0.795, 0.654 and 0.7025 mg/L respectively. These concentrations decreased to Cd (0.005 mg/L), Cr (0.052 mg/L) and Pb (bellow detection limit, BDL) for sample treated with bare zeolite X while a further decrease in concentration of Cd (0.005 mg/L), Cr (BDL) and Pb (BDL) was observed for the sample treated with copper–zeolite composite. Zeolite X and copper-modified zeolite X showed complete elimination of total coliforms after 90 and 50 min contact time respectively. Conclusion The results obtained in this study showed high antimicrobial disinfection and heavy metal removal efficiencies of the synthesized adsorbents. Furthermore, these sorbents are efficient in significantly reducing physical parameters such as electrical conductivity, turbidity, BOD and COD.

The Simultaneous Removal of Zinc and Cadmium from Multicomponent Aqueous Solutions by Their Sorption onto Selected Natural and Synthetic Zeolites

“…The second conversion was performed using the adequate values of molar weights, 65.38 g/mol for Zn and 112.41 g/mol for Cd. When compared to the values provided in other scientific papers on the same subject [19,[22][23][24]26,[69][70][71], the tested minerals were demonstrated to display similar or greater sorption capacity comparing to the similar sorbents and other novel materials tested to remove heavy metals from wastewater effluents. That makes them a good, cost-efficient, and environmentally friendly alternative in the processes of purification of water polluted with heavy metal ions.…”

“…The possibilities of the efficient removal of heavy metals from polluted waters and of the limiting of the inclusion of heavy metals to the food chain at the level of plants-soils interactions was the subject of numerous studies, also performed by the authors of this work [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Those findings were at the basis of the experimental hypothesis of this research, which assumed that natural and synthetic aluminosilicate minerals were highly efficient, low-cost, and environmentally friendly materials in removal of heavy metals from water.…”

Characteristics of the copper‐induced viable‐but‐non‐culturable state in bacteria

“…Cu antimicrobials come in several distinct formulations, often tailored to the specific application. For instance, Cu salts and organic complexes are used as fungicides (Wang et al 2018 ) and algicides (Shen et al 2019 ), and Cu-doped zeolites are being investigated to simultaneously disinfect and remove metals from wastewater (Fanta et al 2019 ). Cu salt-based formulations can be applied topically to combat infections, e.g.…”

Zeolite-Polymer Composite Materials as Water Scavenger

“…Used as a filler, zeolites confer a certain permeability and selectivity to the composite material [ 41 ] due to their shape discrimination resulting from their narrow pore distribution [ 41 , 42 , 43 ]. As for the powder form, zeolite composite can be used for the removal of polluting cations present in wastewater [ 44 , 45 ]. Patents reporting drying solutions based on zeolitic composite materials are mentioned in the literature [ 46 , 47 ], all of which are trying to exploit the zeolite performance once it is blended into polymers.…”