High-concentration fluoride contaminant could exist widely in industrial wastewater such as thermal power plant and photovoltaic industrial. How to make fluoride removal more efficient, easy-to-operate, and cost-effective remains a major issue from both environmental and industrial perspectives. In this study, quartz sand was applied as carrier to provide a low cost and easy operation adsorbent. Aluminum and calcium are two kinds of commonly material used for fluoride removal. Hence, aluminum and calcium were applied for sand surface modification to improve the fluoride adsorption density. The precursor and calcination temperature play an important role of material properties. The objective of the study was to better understand the effect of different precursors and calcination temperature on sand modification for fluoride removal. Five different aluminum salts were coupled with calcium acetate as modification agents. Sand was modified with aluminum and calcium solution. Aluminum and calcium precipitated on sand surface by evaporating the solution over heat plate with constant stirring. The aluminum and calcium-precipitates loaded sand was calcined in oven under different temperature. The fluoride adsorption study of aluminum and calcium modified sand (ACMS) was conducted via batch experiment. The effects of different precursors and temperature were studied through various characterization techniques including scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-Ray analyzer, wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller. The results showed ACMS modified with aluminum isopropoxide and calcium acetate calcined at 550 oC (AICA550) yielded the highest adsorption density. AICA550 also showed the most amount of aluminum and calcium coated on the sand surface and the highest specific surface area of 1.5 m2/g. AICA550 was further applied to investigate the effect of pH in solution for the fluoride adsorption. The results indicate the maximum adsorption density was achieved at pH24 range 5-7.

Fluoride removal with aluminum and calcium modified sand in aqueous solution

256th National Meeting (2018)

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