Removal of iron and arsenic (III) from drinking water using iron oxide-coated sand and limestone

Abstract

A method for removal of iron and arsenic (III) from contaminated water using iron oxide-coated sand and limestone has been developed for drinking water. For the intended use, sand was coated with ferric chloride and used as filtering media. Limestone was added onto the coated sand and the effect of limestone addition on removal efficiency of iron and arsenic was monitored. Both batch and column experiments were conducted to investigate the efficiency of coated sand and limestone as filtering media. Maximum removal of iron (99.8 %) was obtained with coated sand at a dose of 5 g/100 ml and by adding 0.2 g/100 ml of limestone at pH 7.3. Arsenic (III) removal efficiency increased with the increased dose of coated sand and was best removed at pH 7.12. The maximum adsorption capacity for arsenic (III) obtained from Langmuir model was found to be 0.075 mg/g and the kinetics data followed pseudo-first order better than pseudo-second order. Energy dispersive X-ray analysis and FT-IR study proved the removal of iron and arsenic. Column experiment showed removal of iron and arsenic (III) to <0.3 mg/l and 10 μg/l, respectively, from an initial concentration of 20 mg/l (iron) and 200 μg/l (arsenic).