Adsorption of arsenic from a Nova Scotia groundwater onto water treatment residual solids

Water treatment residual solids were examined in batch adsorption and column adsorption experiments using a groundwater from Halifax Regional Municipality that had an average arsenic concentration of 43 μg/L (±4.2 μg/L) and a pH of 8.1. The residual solids studied in this paper were from five water treatment plants, four surface water treatment plants that utilized either alum, ferric, or lime in their treatment systems, and one iron removal plant. In batch adsorption experiments, iron-based residual solids and lime-based residual solids pre-formed similarly to GFH, a commercially-available adsorbent, while alum-based residual solids performed poorly. Langmuir isotherm modeling showed that ferric residuals had the highest adsorptive capacity for arsenic (Qmax = 2230 mg/kg and 42,910 mg/kg), followed by GFH (Qmax = 640 mg/kg), lime (Qmax = 160 mg/kg) and alum (Qmax = <1 mg/kg and 3 mg/kg). Similarly, the maximum arsenic removal was >93% for the ferric and lime residuals and GFH, while the maximum arsenic removal was <49% for the alum residuals under the same conditions. In a column adsorption experiment, ferric residual solids achieved arsenic removal of >26,000 bed volumes before breakthrough past 10 μg As/L, whereas the effluent arsenic concentration from the GFH column was under the method detection limit at 28,000 bed volumes. Overall, ferric and lime water treatment residuals were promising adsorbents for arsenic adsorption from the groundwater, and alum water treatment residuals did not achieve high levels of arsenic adsorption.