Chromium is an element used by the metallurgical industry to produce alloys with a glossy finish, to manufacture colored glass in the chemical industry, to produce oxidants and catalysts and to process leather. These latter applications generate aqueous waste with appreciable contents of Cr6+ which in many cases are disposed irresponsibly, therefore, polluting the water sources.1 In this paper, juices of cashew Anacardium occidentale and “noni” Morinda citrifolia were used to chemically reduce the Cr6+ present in polluted waters to Cr3+, which is less harmful to the environment.1,2 In the first step, an HPLC method was used to measure the content of vitamin C in the juices of 30 fruits available in the Colombian market. The fruit juices with high content of vitamin C and not known for their organoleptic properties were selected to study the reaction between juices and Cr6+ in aqueous solution. Both the cashew (Anacardium occidentale) and “noni" (Morinda citrifolia) juices containing (61.2–68.1) mg/mL respectively were able to chemically reduce Cr6+ to Cr3+ as evidenced by UV-vis analysis. References 1. Cheung, K.; Gu, J.-D. Int. Biodeterior. Biodegradation 2007, 59, 8 -15. 2. Xu, X.-R.; Li, H.-B.; Li, X.-Y.; Gu, J.-D. Chemosphere 2004, 57, 609 -613.

Utilization of fruit juice with high vitamin C content for the remediation of wastewater contaminated with chromium (VI)

249th National Meeting (2015)

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