The Use of Iron-Based Sorption Materials and Magnetic Fields for the Removal of Antimony from Water

Abstract

Elemental antimony (Sb) is a silvery white, brittle solid that, along with arsenic and bismuth, belongs to group VA of the periodic table. It is classified as both a metal and a metalloid.Antimony is present in the Earth's crust at a concentration of about 0.2-0.5 mg/kg. It is seldom found in the environment as a pure element, but it is often found as trivalent and pentavalent sulphides and chlorides. Antimony may enter the aquatic environment by way of natural weathering of rocks, runoff from soils, effluents from mining and manufacturing operations, and industrial and municipal leachate discharges.Antimony is present in water as Sb Antimony is a toxic heavy metal with effects similar to those of arsenic and lead. Intoxication by antimony is not as severe as that from arsenic, since the antimony compounds are absorbed more slowly. The findings on the health aspects of certain heavy metals in drinking water are included in several publications [3][4][5]. The World Health Organization and institutions dealing with monitoring carcinogens have not yet classified antimony as a carcinogen.Pol. J. Environ. Stud. Vol. 24, No. 5 (2015), 1983-1992 Original Research AbstractThe objective of this work was to verify the sorption properties of granular filter materials (GEH, CFH12, Bayoxide E33) during the process of removing antimony from water, and to monitor the impact of magnetic and electromagnetic fields on the effectiveness of removing antimony from water. Pilot tests showed that the use of iron-based sorption materials could possibly decrease the antimony content in water to the values limited for drinking water (5 µg/L Sb). The most suitable adsorbent for removing antimony was GEH. At a concentration of antimony in raw water of 81.4 µg/L and a filtration rate of 3.4 m/h, a value of bed volume 2,030 and adsorption capacity of 144.7 µg/g was determined; at the filtration rate of 5.6 m/h, the bed volume was 1,342, and the adsorption capacity was 96.8 µg/g achieved at breakthrough concentration 5 μg Sb/L. The results presented from testing the effects of a permanent magnet and electromagnet in removing antimony are not well known, as only a few experiments have been conducted.

Improvement of Phosphate Adsorption Kinetics onto Ferric Hydroxide by Size Reduction

“…The GFH BET surface area was within the same range as found in the literature (120-300 m 2 /g) [1,14,15,17,18,44,45]. Comparing the three materials shows the destruction of the BET surface area with size reduction, including an important loss of micropore area, which is 100% in the case of the milled material.…”