Screening and optimization of effective factors in adsorption of Co from waste waters on 13X zeolite by usingfractional factorial design

Disposal and recovery of industrial effluents, especially heavy metals, is considered to be one of the major concerns in developed countries. For this purpose, different methods such as precipitation, membrane separation, ion exchange, solvent extraction, and electrochemical reduction can be used. In contrast to most of these methods, adsorption on zeolites has been proved an effective and inexpensive candidate. Contamination of water by high concentration of Co due to industrial activities will create problems such as asthma and pneumonia thus, using fractional factorial design in optimization of effective factors in adsorption of Co from waste waters on 13X zeolite has been studied in this research. The significant factors including temperature, pH, contact time, and sorbent amount were optimized to yield 99.98% in adsorption by 13X sorbent. The test samples and real samples (sea water and wastewater) were analyzed by atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). The figures of merit under optimized removal conditions were detected evaluated.