Study of Removal of Pb,Zn,Cu and Ni Ions from Iraqi factories wastewater using local porcelanite rocks

Abstract

The present study aims to remove some ions of heavy metals such as Cu, Zn, Ni, and Pb
ions from industrial wastewater of plant manufacturing batteries, electrical industries, and
detergent factories, using Iraqi porcelanite rocks from western desert in Iraq. It was found
that, these siliceous rocks have a high susceptibility to remove the ions of heavy metals from
industrial wastewater with efficiency of removal ions ranged from 90-100%, under controlled
conditions such as flow rate, practical size , temperature , and pH of solution which were 30
ml/hr, 3mm, 30°C, and 2 respectively. The study had indicated appositive relationship
between the removal efficiency of the heavy metals with the increasing weight of the
adsorbent materials within the column. The selectivity sequence can be given as, Pb> Zn>
Cu> Ni. These results show that Iraqi porcelenite rocks hold great potential to remove
cationic heavy metal species from industrial wastewater.