Aluminium removal from wastewater effluent

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Good Day All.

Can anyone ​advise on a ​feasible and ​trusted method ​to remove ​Aluminium from ​water before ​sending it to ​an RO. The ​Aluminium is ​10mg/l in total ​and 8mg/l of it ​is dissolved

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9 Answers

  1. I can suggest a method using my patented technology vide-Patent no.IN 201811011885 titled BIOREMEDIATION SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR REMOVING DAMAGING HEAVY METALS FROM INDUSTRIAL EFFLUENTS as a Inventor. The advantage here is it will remove everything in a single system.suhasinibhatnagar@gmail.com

  2. Reverse Osmosis will reduce the aluminum content of drinking water by over 98%. Distillation will reduce the aluminum content of water by over 99%. Electrodialysis is also very effective in the reduction of aluminum.

    Aluminum may be removed from water by means of ion exchange or coagulation/ flocculation. Aluminum salts are applied in water treatment for precipitation reactions. Adding aluminum sulphate and lime to water causes aluminum hydroxide formation, which leads to settling of pollutants.

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  4. Feed water to a reservoir and raise the pH to a level at which a flocculent works best.  Use lime (calcium) as this forme part of the precipitate, and stir well together with a folcculent of sulphate.  Ferric sulphate works well snd is very inexpensive.

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  6. We offer a Organic Certified liquid product that reduces Al, Fe, Mn, etc in water, it might be the solution to your Alum issue. Email me dave@makroorganics.com

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    1. Hi Dave. Do you send sample of testers to clients so that we can first see if this works before purchasing anything?

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      1. Yes its possible. Please email me and let me know where your client is based, I will in return connect you/them to our nearest distributor for sample & testing.

  7. We designed a treatment plant for removing Al, Fe, and Mn.  Both Al and Fe precipitate at 7 - 8 as hydroxides, but Mn needs pH 10.5 - 11.  So be careful, as pH is critical with different metals.

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    1. Thanks Ivan, I just have the following question:

       1) So did you only do pH manipulation followed by filtration?

       2) what was the reaction time required for the precipitation to occur?

       3) What concentrations of Aluminium were you dealing with?

  9. A lot depends on the pH of the wastewater.  Assuming it is over 7.5pH, a simple fix is to add an ortho phosphate into the water.  You will need a detention spot to get a few minutes of contact.  Run the treated water to a simple multimedia filter. Then run the multimedia backwash into this detention spot. A tank or sump works for this. This provides a source of solids to help absorb and react the Al. You can do the same thing with a ceramic tube microfilter in place of the MMF. Periodically you pull some of the sludge and waste it to get rid of some solids. You can do the same process adding a dithiocarbamate or any other anion that has a small Al solubility. 

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    2. Thanks Terry, i just have a quick question:

      1) What was your Aluminium concentrations you dealt with?

      2) What was your source of ortho-P and at what concentration ratio did you add it wrt Al ?

      3) Will 20 minute contact time be enough or can I make it 5 minutes?

       

       

      3 Comment replies

      1. under 5 Minutes. There is a pretty simple way for you to get an idea of your water. You can do this with a simple plate mixer and a 1 liter beaker. You will need a turbidimeter.  If you have a turbidity cell it is easier.  Filter 1 liter of your water. Add  your water to the beaker and get it mixing measure the turbidity either by pulling  a sample or reading the output from the meter attached to the turbidity cell. Drop in 20ppm of o-PO4 per 1ppm of Al. It is an overdose but you are looking for a rate of reaction. At 80% of the maximum turbidity, you have your reaction time.  Kinetics at its finest. My email is scheurman.terry@appliedspecialties.com might be easier than messaging but  glad to help either way. 

      3. The bulk of the Al concentrations were under 1ppm and it was all soluble. The PO4 source was trisodium phosphate because of cost. The reaction is rather fast at temperatures around 70F.  We were able to increase the effective reaction time by using a tank or lagoon as a wide spot in the process stream.  Low levels of soluble Al are very disruptive to RO membranes.  You can give it a small test using a fish tank and a packed column to replicate  a MM  filter.  Hope this helps.