A laboratory study for the treatment of arsenic, iron, and manganese bearing ground water using Fe 3+ impregnated activated carbon: Effects of shaking time, pH and temperature

Abstract

This paper deals with the experimental investigation related to removal of arsenic from a simulated contaminated ground water by the adsorption onto Fe 3+ impregnated granular activated carbon (GAC-Fe) in presence of Fe 2+, Fe 3+, and Mn 2+. Similar study has also been done with granular activated carbon (GAC) for comparison. The effects of shaking time, pH, and temperature on the percentage removal of As(T), As(III), As(V), Fe 2+, Fe 3+, and Mn have been discussed. The shaking time for optimum removal of arsenic species has been noted as 8 h for GAC-Fe and 12 h for GAC, respectively. As(T) removal was less affected by the change in pH within the pH range of 2–11. Maximum removal of As(V) and As(III) was observed in the pH range of 5–7 and 9–11, respectively, for both the adsorbents. Under the experimental conditions at 30 °C, the optimum removal of As(T), As(III), As(V), Fe, and Mn are 95.5%, 93%, 98%, 100%, and 41%, respectively, when GAC-Fe is used. For GAC these values are 56%, 41%, 71%, 99%, and 98%. The adsorbent dose (AD) and its particle size (PS) for both GAC and GAC-Fe were 30 g/l and 125–150 μm, respectively. The initial arsenic concentration in the synthetic water sample was 200 ppb.