Removal of Chromium (III) from Aqueous Solution Using Limestone Rock Chippings

Medard Mathew Muna¹ , Benson Ongarora² , Paul Tanui³

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.10 , Issue.2 , pp.15-24, Apr-2023

Online published on Apr 30, 2023

Copyright © Medard Mathew Muna, Benson Ongarora, Paul Tanui . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
Chromium is a valuable element in human health and the manufacturing industry. However, any content greater than 0.1 mg/L in water has detrimental effects on an ecosystem. Its presence poses severe health challenges for all living things and environmental risks. Different approaches have been applied to treat wastewater polluted with chromium before releasing it into the environment. However, the current practices face several challenges including the complexity of their application and high running costs. This study investigated the potential of using limestone as an inexpensive and eco-friendly alternative to removing chromium from wastewater. The locally available and naturally occurring limestone material was collected, cleaned, dried, crushed and graded to the desired sizes. It was then subjected to chemical, SEM and XRF analysis to determine its physical and chemical properties. The graded limestone chippings were used in batch experiments as filtration media to remove chromium from the freshly prepared chromium salt solution. In batch studies, the impacts of the initial chromium ion concentration, contact time, limestone mass dose, and pH of the solution were studied. The ideal parameters for treating 100 mL of chromium solution were found to be a pH of 6.0, contact duration of 90 minutes, a mass dosage of 110 g, and a starting concentration of 100 ppm. The established parameters were applied to tannery effluent sample obtained from a local tannery. Our findings show that limestone has an outstanding filtration ability for chromium heavy metal removal, with maximum removal rates of 98.94% and 92.08% from fresh chromium solution and chrome tannery effluent, respectively. Overall, our results show that using a filtration technology, limestone may be used to efficiently remove heavy metals from wastewater at a low cost and in a sustainable way.

Key-Words / Index Term :
Limestone, Chromium (III), Filtration, Aqueous solution, Removal efficiency, Recovery, Re-use

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