Performances of novel chelating ion exchange resins for boron and arsenic removal from saline geothermal water using adsorption-membrane filtration hybrid process

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the performances of new N-methyl-D-glucamine functionalized resins revealing gel (1JW), expanded gel (2JW) and epidermal-like structure (2PTN) for simultaneous removal of boron and arsenic from saline geothermal water by means of adsorption-membrane filtration hybrid process. The effects of adsorbent concentration and resin replacement rate were particularly studied for boron removal from geothermal water. Boron removal with 1JW resin increased from 66% to 86% by doubling the resin concentration while the respective values found for 2PTN resin were 61% and 73%. In the case of the microporous 2PTN resin, due to its epidermal-like structure, the efficiency of the hybrid process was improved by increasing the replacement rate of fresh and saturated resins. Unlike the 2JW resin as the most efficient resin for boron removal among novel resins, the maximum arsenic removal of 35.8% was obtained by the 1JW resin using a resin concentration of 4 g/L. The Dowex XUS 43594.00 resin exhibited lower arsenic removal of 21.5% than 2PTN (4 g/L) and 2JW (2 g/L) giving arsenic removals of 22.4% and 28.8%, respectively.