Removal of Cu^2+ by Adsorption-Flocculation

In this work, removal of Cu^2+ cations by adsorption-flocculation method was studied. In contrary of conventional adsorption processes, the method proposed supplies the removal of Cu^2+ loaded adsorbent through the precipitation and thus the filtration step is skipped out. The precipitation of adsorbent is carried out by adding of a cationic surfactant in a certain amount so as to results in flocs and than the flocs are removed in a small retention time. The results of studies showed that copper was removed by adsorption and also precipitation on the clay surface. The Cu2+ loaded adsorbent was removed in amounts exceeding 90%. Besides, the amount of clay precipitated from the dispersion was high even in low copper concentrations in contrary of the cases at which only clay was used as adsorbent and it was not affected by solution’s pH.