Chemical Precipitation of Cations from Aqueous Solutions using Waste Sludge from the Solway Process as a Potential Agent

Abstract

Chemical precipitation is a useful conventional process to remove heavy metals from aqueous solutions. In this work, a waste sludge from the Solway process was used as a precipitation agent for the precipitation of Cu (II), Ni (II), Pb (II) and Zn (II) ions with an initial concentration of 50 mg/L. The results of the research showed that the waste sludge from the Solway process completely removed Pb (II) ions from the solution in the pH range of 8.39 -11.74, also good efficiency was shown in other cations. The maximum precipitation efficiency for Cu (II) is 99.890% at pH 10.98, Ni (II) 99.940% at pH 11.81, Zn (II) 99.616% at 10.1. Waste sludge is proved to be a good precipitate for cation separation.