Groundwater Treatment from Heavy Metals

The one of the most significant environmental problems in the last decades becomes the contamination of the soil and groundwater. The contamination can comprise the substantial risk for the environment and for human health. This work studies the reliability of using zeolite, which is one of the promising innovative in situ remediation methods, in removing cadmium from a contaminated shallow aquifer. In the batch tests, the influence of several operating parameters such as the effects of initial metal concentration (50-250 mg/L), time of contact of adsorbate with adsorbent (0-180 min), pH of the solution (2-8), adsorbent dose (0.15-2 g/100 ml), and agitation speed (200& 270 rpm) were investigated. The optimum values of these parameters for cadmium on zeolite were 50 mg/L, 60 min, 6.5, 0.25 g/100 ml and 270 rpm respectively with achieved removal efficiency greater than 99.5 %.