Foundry sands as low-cost adsorbent material for Cr (VI) removal

Abstract

The potential of foundry sands, industrial waste from the iron foundry industry, was evaluated for the removal of Cr (VI) using discontinuous assays. Chemical foundry sands are composed of fine silica sand, furanic resins as binder, chemical catalyst and residual iron particles. The influence of pH, agitation rate and metal concentration on the removal process was investigated. Kinetic and equilibrium tests were conducted to determine Cr (VI) removal from aqueous solutions at a temperature range of 25–55°C. Cr (VI) removal of 40–100% for a range of pH 6–1.6 was obtained. This removal was attributed to the presence of a large number of protonated silanol and aluminol groups. Cr (VI) adsorption in foundry sands follows a pseudo-second-order kinetic reaction (Ho model, r ²>0.999) reaching kinetic constants of 0.341, 0.551, 0.775 and 0.920 g/mg h at 25, 35, 45 and 55°C, respectively. The adsorption data were fitted to the Langmuir adsorption isotherm model (r ²>0.99) obtaining adsorption capacities (q _max) of 1.99, 2.40, 2.50, and 3.14 mg Cr (VI)/g sand at 25, 35, 45 and 55°C, respectively. Calculated Gibbs free energy change (Δ G ⁰), adsorption energy (E) and activation energy (E _a) values indicate that a physisorption mechanism governs Cr (VI) adsorption process in foundry sands.

Keywords:

• foundry sands
• Cr (VI) removal
• batch assays
• kinetic studies
• adsorption studies

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by project PGDIT 10MDS042E (RECADOS) from Xunta de Galicia.