Use of Static Method to remove Heavy Metal of the Contaminated Water, using Porous Geopolymer and Magnetically Loaded

Abstract

Due to several catastrophic fires in France involving flammable organic plastics, Davidovits began his search for new materials resistant to heat, developing an alkaline activated silico-aluminous material, which was called a geopolymer. The polymeric Si-O-Al network gives the geopolymer ion exchange property, allowing the immobilization of heavy and radioactive metals within the material matrix. Due to the geopolymer's characteristic of immobilizing heavy metals in its matrix, this project aims to evaluate the geopolymer's ability to absorb heavy metals in contaminated water. For this, samples of porous geopolymers with magnetic charges in concentrations of 1, 2 and 3% were produced. And, subsequently, toxic metal solutions were made, such as Chromium, Cadmium and Lead at a concentration of 3ppm, then the sorption was carried out using the static method, where 0.5 g of the gepopolymer was dispersed in 25 ml of contaminated water and left stirring for 5 minutes, with the aid of a mechanical stirrer, and left to rest for 24 hours for the geopolymer to settle and the supernatant to be collected (this procedure was performed for geopolymers with and without magnetic charges). Afterwards, the treated water was analyzed by the atomic absorption technique, in order to investigate the geopolymer's sorption capacity. All tests were performed in triplicate and the mean, standard deviation and 95% confidence limit were evaluated to determine the reliability of the results.