Arsenic removal from high-arsenic water by enhanced coagulation with ferric ions and coarse calcite

Water Res. 2006 Jan;40(2):364-72. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2005.09.046. Epub 2005 Dec 15.

Abstract

Arsenic removal from high-arsenic water in a mine drainage system has been studied through an enhanced coagulation process with ferric ions and coarse calcite (38-74 microm) in this work. The experimental results have shown that arsenic-borne coagulates produced by coagulation with ferric ions alone were very fine, so micro-filtration (membrane as filter medium) was needed to remove the coagulates from water. In the presence of coarse calcite, small arsenic-borne coagulates coated on coarse calcite surfaces, leading the settling rate of the coagulates to considerably increase. The enhanced coagulation followed by conventional filtration (filter paper as filter medium) achieved a very high arsenic removal (over 99%) from high-arsenic water (5mg/l arsenic concentration), producing a cleaned water with the residual arsenic concentration of 13 microg/l. It has been found that the mechanism by which coarse calcite enhanced the coagulation of high-arsenic water might be due to attractive electrical double layer interaction between small arsenic-borne coagulates and calcite particles, which leads to non-existence of a potential energy barrier between the heterogeneous particles.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Arsenic / chemistry
  • Arsenic / isolation & purification*
  • Calcium Carbonate / chemistry
  • Filtration
  • Iron / chemistry
  • Mining
  • Water Pollutants / isolation & purification*
  • Water Purification / methods*

Substances

  • Water Pollutants
  • Iron
  • Calcium Carbonate
  • Arsenic