Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences: Research Areas

Article Title: Economic Viability of Removal of Heavy Metal Cations from Industrial Wastewater Using Innovative Technique
by Mohamed El Zayat, Sherien Elagroudy and Salah El Haggar

Abstract:
Cement Kiln Dust (CKD) is experimented in dynamic up-flow fixed bed reactors using stainless steel columns to study the dynamic breakthrough patterns. Synthetic metal solutes containing the target metals (lead, copper, and cadmium) are fed with an initial concentration of 30 mg/l. The experimental runs show that the CKD has a high affinity to adsorb the target metals. The surface concentration at exhaustion in a molar basis is found to be 240 ?M/g, 290 ?M/g, and 650?M/g for lead, copper and cadmium, respectively. A pilot scale of 20~25 l/hr capacity is fabricated to investigate the capability of CKD in treating industrial wastewater. Raw industrial wastewater from glass manufacturing is introduced to the pilot scale unit. The proposed treatment unit using CKD is able to reduce the total suspended solids (TSS) by 95% and biological oxygen demand (BOD) by 72%. Moreover, heavy metals concentrations in the raw wastewater have been effectively treated to comply with international guidelines for restricted irrigation. The results are promising and indicating that the introduced methodology can be industrially applied. Finally, the economic indicators in terms of economic rate of return (11.5%) and the positive net economic present value prove that the system is economically viable. Accordingly, it is apparent from this study that CKD can be used in an innovative and compact treatment technique to recover industrial wastewater from heavy metals.

Keywords: heavy metals, industrial waste, cement kiln dust (CKD), economic viability, pilot scale

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