Activation Conditions of Kutahya-Unye Bentonite for Removal of Nickel from Waste Water

Abstract

Any impurities above a certain concentration in water are harmful to the living spaces of living things. Therefore, the removal of pollutants in the water is very important in terms of maintaining the lives of living things. Nickel has an important place in metal coating due to its hardness, corrosion resistance and brilliance. Significant quantities of nickel are present in industrial and urban wastewater, particularly in steel enterprises and the electroplating industry waste waters. This study aims to investigate the effects of thermal and chemical activation conditions of Kutahya-Unye bentonite for removing nickel from wastewater. The bentonite samples were activated by two different methods: (i) thermal activation, (ii) acid activation. The operating range of the thermal activation studies was determined as 100, 300, 500, 700 0C. In the acid activation studies, the samples which were thermally activated, were entreated with 0.5 and 1 M HCl solutions. And, also acid activation was studied at different times to investigate the activation time on bentonite properties. The effects of temperature and acid treatment on calcium based-bentonite samples were investigated by Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) between the region of 4000-400 cm−1. It was observed that increasing the activation temperature has increased the nickel amount at the waste water. The optimal activation time for nickel removal from wastewater was determined to be 120 minutes, which resulted in the use of activation temperature 700 0C and 0.5 M HCl acid. It was concluded that if we can increase the adsorption capacity and applicability, Ca-bentonite may be a promising clay for the removal of nickel in the wastewater stream.