Vermiculite in Fluidized Bed as Decontaminating Agent for Liquid Phases

Sikalidis, Constantinos; Filippidis, Anestis; Papastergios, Georgios; Kantiranis, Nikolaos

Vermiculite in Fluidized Bed as Decontaminating Agent for Liquid Phases

2012

Sikalidis, Constantinos | Filippidis, Anestis | Papastergios, Georgios | Kantiranis, Nikolaos

Over the last decades, removal of potentially toxic and hazardous materials has received a great deal of attention in the field of environmental pollution. Problems associated with the disposal of the wastes of different kinds of industries led to studies of the sorption–uptake properties of clay minerals and zeolites. In the present research, the behavior of vermiculite particles ranging between 425 and 500 μm in a laboratory-scale fluidized bed column for uptake of Cs, Hg, and Mn ions from aqueous solutions and wastes in the presence of competing cations has been studied in order to investigate techniques for decontamination of liquid phases. Vermiculite selectively removed high percentages of Cs even from low concentrations in the presence of competing cations. Also removed were up to 60 % of added Hg²⁺ at concentrations of 5 ppm from drinking water and about 84 % from seawater, and furthermore, Mn²⁺ was selectively removed from low-concentration (ca 10 ppm) industrial wastes even when the ratio of Mn²⁺ to competing cations was 1:94. The results suggest the potential use of vermiculite as decontaminating agent in well-designed fluidized bed columns.

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