REMOVAL OF HEAVY METALS FROM WATER USING EGGSHELL.

摘要

The lead removal from water must be compulsory in order to avoid environmental pollution and damages to health. There are some methods for removing said pollutant from water, however, the high costs avoid the use of said technologies by companies and/or enterprises. The inventive process includes eggshell as a bio-organic material, which was previously studied to determine the removal ability thereof; the eggshell is a cost-effective and abundant residue considering that Mexico occupies the first place as a consumer of said product. Within said process, the eggshell is milled and mixed with an aqueous solution of metallic ions so as to remove the pollutants from the liquid phase. The reaction was performed under environmental conditions, said characteristic may be reproduced at an industrial level. Several characterisation techniques were carried out for testing the removal efficiency of the eggshell, which are the following: Atomic Force Microscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Ener gy-Dispersive X-ray Analysis, Atomic abortion and X-ray Diffraction. The results shown that the use of eggshell for treating wastewaters containing heavy metals is a novel method offering a simple, effective and affordable form for treating wastewaters, since it removes from about 50% to about 90% of the metal amount, where the process does not require special working conditions.