Joanna FRONCZYK & Maja RADZIEMSKA
Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Warsaw University of Life Sciences - SGGW, Warsaw, Poland.
E-mail: joanna_fronczyk@sggw.pl.

REMOVAL OF COPPER(II) IONS FROM GROUNDWATER USING POWDERED DEVONIAN DOLOMITE IN PERMEABLE REACTIVE BARRIERS

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Contamination of groundwater by copper has been an environmental issue for a long time. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of powdered Devonian dolomite on Cu(II) removal from aqueous solution. Experiments were carried out as a function of contact time, dosage, initial concentration, solution pH and competitive ions. The results show that for contact times of up to 60 min the amounts of Cu(II) adsorbed increase by 44 - 62%. Moreover, adsorption increases most intensively in the first 24 hrs of the process. The data is in agreement with the pseudo-second-order kinetic model what indicate that the rate-limiting step in the adsorption of Cu(II) was chemisorption, and that pore diffusion is an important element of the adsorption processes. The Langmuir maximum adsorption capacity of powdered Devonian dolomite in relation to Cu(II) ions is 3.025 mg/g. Moreover, the pH of a initial solution has little effect on the amount of Cu(II) adsorbed by dolomite. The Cu(II) removal percentage in pH ranging from 2.0 ± 0.2 to 8.0 ± 0.2 falls between 97.2% and 99.0%. The presence of competitive ions (Ca, Mg, Na, K) in the initial solution slightly inhibited the adsorption of Cu(II). The results show that powdered Devonian dolomite could be used as an effective reactive material for the removal of Cu(II) from groundwater.