Adsorbent for water treatment advantageously for treatment of potable water
The subject matter of the invention is an adsorbent for water treatment advantageously
for treatment of potable water.
The water, e. g. ground water, well water, as well as the potable waters can be often
contaminated with compounds of heavy metals, arsenic and occasionally even with
radioactive isotopes; their content of bacteria is often higher than permissible.
The toxic compounds containing heavy metals like those of lead, cadmium, as well as
radioactive isotopes like those of caesium, cerium and strontium entering water or
potable water can endanger living beings.
These contaminating materials enter subsoil water and the water of wells usually from
the soil, thermal waters and pesticides on the surface of soil or plants.
Water containing arsenic acids with presence of ions As in concentration of at least
0.7 mg per litre of ground water is qualified as arsenic contaminated water (see: B.
Borszeki: Book of mineral and medicinal waters Medicina, Budapest 1979, p. 199).
The medicinal waters and the thermal ones are often waters with arsenic content at the
same time.
Arsenic compounds can be present in the concentration of 0.05 to 0.1 mg/1 in the
potable water for humans, 0.05 to 0.2 mg/1 for animals and 2 to 10 mg/1 for watering
plants.
Latent or chronic arsenical intoxication can even occur in consequence of regular
consumption of water with arsenic content.
Cadmium enters the soil with artificial fertilisers with phosphoric content, because
they can contain cadmium.
Lead enters the ah thiough burning of petrol with lead content in motorcars. It
enters the soil and then water of wells with rainwater.
The concentration of lead often surpasses the permissible level in the air of a large
town. The concentiation of lead increases quickly in the soil of agricultural lands in
the neighbourhood of the towns and motorways having contaminated air by this
reason.
Lead entering the water of wells from the soil is dangerous for living beings.
Water of wells in contaminated areas can contain in addition to compounds of lead
those of mercury, copper, cadmium and nickel.
Radioactive isotopes enter the soil respectively water of wells as result of improper
treatment of radioactive contaminants when they were rendered harmless.
It is an important task to produce water or potable water free from the above
mentioned contaminants.
The known adsorbents or filter inserts are able to bind the above-mentioned
contaminants, but their binding capacity is inadequate in a number of cases.
It is difficult to find an adsorbent capable to bind arsenic compounds those of heavy
metals and bacteria with high efficiency on its surface.
The Hungarian patent specification of No. 200 035 describes a method for treatment of
water including industrial waste waters, other ones and potable waters containing
compounds of heavy metals as contaminants with chemicals, then the purified water is
treated with activated zeolite.
The German patent specification of No. 3 248 126 describes an apparatus to improve
quality of potable water in which ion exchanging resin containing added bactericide is
applied as insert.
The Hungarian patent specification of No. 202 454 describes a complex water treating
apparatus, which contains a cartridge with ion exchanging resin and other ones with
contents of active charcoal and disinfecting substance.
The disadvantage of the above mentioned methods and apparatuses is that the applied
ion exchanging resin or adsorbent has not complex adsorbing capability and their
adsorbing capacity is not always adequate.
Our target is to develop an adsorbent or a mixture of adsorbents, which used as insert
serves for more effective and complex treatment of waters especially potable water
rendering them free from above mentioned contaminants.
We found during our experiments that pseudo-boehmite, heat treated pseudo-boehmite
or mixture thereof with clinoptilolite or a mixture of the mentioned adsorbents with
quartz-sand are excellently applicable to extract the said contaminants from water, as
well as from potable water.
The pseudo-boehmite is produced from alkali solution of sodium aluminate,
advantageously from alkali solution of sodium aluminate derived from alumina
production.
According to the method of production carbon dioxide gas is lead into alkali solution
of sodium aluminate, then the product fallen out is washed, formed into sludge with
water and treated again with carbon dioxide then the reaction mixture is heat treated at
a temperature of 80 to 90 C°, the product fallen out is filtered, washed with water in
several stages then dried. A pseudo- boehmite based on aluminium oxide-
hydroxide is obtained in this way, which comprises 20 to 24 mass % of water bound as
crystal water, 0.01 to 0.4 mass % of metal oxides i. e. Na20, Fe203 and CaO, MgO if
desired, furthermore optionally 0.01 to 0.1 mass % of Si02 and A1203 in quantity
necessary to the 100 mass %. The pseudo-boehmite produced in this way is heat-
treated at the temperature from 110 to 125 C° if desired.
It is preferred to use a thin solution of sodium aluminate with concentration of Na20
less than 100 g/1, advantageously 40 g/1 as primary material.
The grain size of pseudo-boehmite obtained in this manner is between 0.001 and 0.1
mm, preferably between 0.01 and 0.1 mm.
An adsorbent of extraordinarily high adsorbing capacity can be produced, if the
washed product of treatment with carbon dioxide is subjected to heat treatment at a
temperature from 110 to 125 C°. The carbonate contamination of adsorbent is namely
eliminated and the adsorbing capacity of the product can be increased up to 93 to 95 %
in this way.
The heat treatment at the temperature from 110 to 125 C° is performed preferably
during 1 to 6 hours.
The compound produced in this way is a pseudo-boehmite based on aluminium oxide-
hydroxide which comprises 20 to 24 mass % of water bound as ciystal water, 0.01 to
0.4 mass % of metal oxides namely Na20, Fe203 and CaO, MgO if desired,
furtliermore optionally Si02 and A1203 in quantity necessary to the 100 mass %.
The pseudo-boehmite produced by the method according to the invention is a weekly-
crystallised intermediate phase between the aluminium hydroxide gel and the
crystalline aluminium hydroxide sorts containing well-determined quantities of
crystal water.
The properties of this product like those of any intermediate phase can change in a
defined range and its composition depends on that of the primary material and the
parameters of production.
The pseudo-boehmite produced according to the above described method can be used
either itself or mixed together with other materials as adsorbing insert according to
invention.
Consequently the subject matter of the invention is an adsorbent applicable for water
treatment, preferably for treatment of potable water, which has the following
characteristic features:
it is a pseudo-boehmite based on the aluminium oxide-hydroxide consisting of 20 to
24 mass % of water bound as crystal water, 0.001 to 0.4 mass % of metal oxides like
Na20, Fe203 and CaO, MgO if desired, furthermore optionally 0.01 to 0.1 mass % of
Si02 and A1203 in quantity necessary to 100 mass %
or
it is a variant of this material subjected to heat treatment at the temperature 110 to 125
C°
or
a mixture of 80 to 20 mass units of said pseudo-boehmite and 20 to 80 mass units of
clinoptilolite
or
a mixture of 80 to 20 mass units of pseudo-boehmite respectively heat treated
pseudo-boehmite optionally a mixture thereof with clinoptilolite and 20 to 80 mass
units of quartz-sand with gravel.
The above-described adsorbent is suitable for usage as insert of water treating
reservoir or cartridge.
The advantageous features of the adsorbent according to invention are as follows:
It is able to bind equally compounds of arsenic, heavy metals, radioactive isotopes and
bacteria.
It has excellent adsorbing capacity.
The following examples describe the method of production and adsorbing capability of
the adsorbent according to the invention.
Example 1
A thin solution of sodium aluminate of Na20 concentration of 50 g/1 derived from
alumina production is loaded into a reactor then carbon dioxide gas is leaded in until
alurrώiium hydroxide gel settles out.
The settled material is filtered, washed with water then mixed into sludge with water.
The sludge is reloaded into the reactor and carbon dioxide gas is leaded again into it
until the pH value of 6.8 to 7.2 is reached.
The settled product is heat treated at a temperature of 80 to 90 C° during 30 minutes
then filtered and the filtration product is washed.
The washed product is mixed with water again into sludge then filtered and washed.
The last steps are repeated several times until a pure product is obtained.
The product filtered in the last step is spray-dried.
Example 2
All operations are the same as described in the Example 1 then the spray-dried product
is heated in a heat-treatment furnace at 120 C° during 5 hours.
The product obtamed in this manner is a fine loose powder, which has large specific
surface.
The chemical composition of the pseudo-boehmite produced according to the
invention is as follows:
* weight loss measured at 1100 Cc
** weight loss measured at 110 C° (the composition described in form of oxides
relates to material dried at 110 C°).
The physical and physio-chemical properties of pseudo-boehmite are
described in the following table:
** The aluminium hydroxide compounds have amphoteric character consequently they
dissolve in strong acids and alkali solutions. The amorphous material has the highest
solubility, the pseudo-boehmite is less soluble, gibbsite is the least soluble. The
hydroxide either of amorphous or of boehmitic structure are practically completely
soluble at pH=4 and pH=12.
Example 3
The arsenic binding capability of pseudo-boehmite produced according to Example 1
is tested.
During the test 1 g of adsorbent according to Example 1 was added to 10 ml of
solution, the pH was set to 7.24, the solution samples were shaken until the highest
binding capacity was reached and the arsenic adsorbing capability of the
adsorbent samples were measured.
The solutions were prepared by dissolution of As203 in water.
The results of tests are shown in the table below.
The above table shows that the binding capacity of adsorbent is 70.448 mg of As per
gram at the defined load.
Example 4
A mixture of 80 g of pseudo-boehmite described in Example 2 and 20 g of
clinoptilolite was used as adsorbent.
The cadmium binding capability of the adsorbent was tested.
The sample solutions were prepared by dissolution of Cd(N03)2 4H20 in water.
Amounts of 1 g of adsorbent were added to those of 20 ml of sample solutions and the
solution samples were shaken until the steady state was reached.
The pH value of solution samples was 8.28.
The results of the experiments were as shown in the table below.
The results in the table show that the adsorbent has a considerable cadmium
binding capacity.
Example 5
The lead binding capability of the adsorbent prepared according to Example 1 was
tested.
Solutions of different concentrations were prepared by dissolution of Pb(N03)2 in
water.
Amounts of 1 g adsorbent according to Example 1 were added to amounts 20 ml of
solution samples with different concentration and the solution samples were shaken
until the steady state was reached.
The pH value of solution samples was 8.28.
The results of the experiments were as shown in the table below.
The results of the experiments show that the adsorbent has an excellent lead binding
capacity.
Example 7
The cesium (Cs) isotope binding capability of a mixture of 80 g pseudo-boelimite
according to Example 2 and 20 g of clinoptilolite was tested.
A solution of CsCl containing Cs isotope of mass number 134 with Cs
concentration 10 μg/ml was used as experimental solution.
An amount of 1 g of adsorbent was added to 50 ml of solution and it was shaken until
the steady state was reached.
The percentage of bound Cs isotope ions was tested as function of the contact time.
Example 8
The Example 7 is repeated with SrCl test solution containing Sr++ isotope ions.
The results of the experiments is shown in the table below
Example 8
The bacteria adsorbing capability of the mixture of 50 g of adsorbent according to
Example 2 and 50 g of clinoptilolite was tested.
A suspension of cultures of a Gram-positive bacterium and a Gram-negative one was
prepared for the test.
Cells were obtained by centrifugation from shaken cultures of Escherischia coli and
Staphylococcus aureus of 24 hours.
A suspension was prepared from the cells in sterilised tap water so that the extinction
of preparation was 0.2 in relation to the tap water.
1 g of adsorbent was added to 500 g of the suspension.
The mixture was shaken then the percentage of purifying was measured so that the
whole purifying was defined as 100 %.
The measured results are as follows:
It appears from the results in the table that the adsorbent according to invention has
considerable bacteria binding capacity.
Example 9
A filling consisting of 300 kg of quartz sand and gravel and 50 kg of pseudo-boehmite
according to Example 2 was loaded into the filtering reservoir 1 of the water treating
plant shown in the Figure 1.
The water to be treated is water with As content of 72.87 μg/1.
The water was passed through the filling on the sieve 2 in the reservoir 1 during 88
hours with speed of 12.72 1/min.
The whole quantity of heated water was 67.16 m3.
The treated water was lead into clear water basin through pipe 2.
The arsenic content of the heated water was then measured. It was reduced to 22.37
μg/1.
It appears from the example that the filling according to invention is able to free water
from arsenic contamination with good efficacy.