ARSENIC REMOVAL FROM DRINKING WATER USING FLYASH AS AN ADSORBENT
Nowadays water pollution has become a major problem that is being faced by the human kind. Among various pollutants present in water, arsenic is gaining much importance because of the toxicity of its compounds. Hence it is very much necessary to find the best suitable technique for removal of arsenic from drinking water. In the present study, the removal of Arsenic from synthetic sample on coated fly ash has been carried out at room temperature 32 ± 1 o C. Initially raw fly ash was used for the experiment and it was seen that the residual arsenic concentration increased hencebatch tests were conducted for the removal of Arsenic on iron sulphate coated fly ash for optimum parameters such as dosage, pH, time, initial concentration and agitation rate. The maximum removal efficiency was obtained at an optimum dosage of 0.5gms. It was found that 100% removal can be achieved at slightly alkaline pH condition. The optimum time, initial concentration and agitation rate were found to be 15mins, 140µg/l and 150RPM respectively. Arsenic is the 20th most abundant element found in the earth's crust. It occupies nearly 0.00005% of the entire earth's surface (2). Arsenic occurs naturally and sometimes can be produced by anthropogenic sources such as mining, industrial and agricultural activities. It is found naturally in the geologic substrate and also can be produced during volcanic eruptions. Arsenic occurs in organic and in-organic forms. It is present in the organic form in food in small amount which is required for the body. In natural waters, it is present in the in-organic form namely As (III) and As (V). These two ions namely, arsenic trioxide and arsenic pentoxide are either naturally occurring or byproducts of industrial waste. The predominant species for As (III) are H3AsO3 and for As (V) are H2AsO 4- and HAsO4 2-. These chemicals can badly affect human health(10)when they are consumed in large amount. The ground water at various locations in Bangladesh, West Bengal, some parts of Bihar& Karnataka in India, has been noticed to be contaminated with Arsenic (As) in excess of its permissible limit. Recently 14 out of 20 villages at Surpur taluq of Yadgir district, Karnataka state (India) has been found to be affected by Arsenic content.Several incidents have demonstrated that Arsenic in water may be carcinogenic. Acute poisoning by Arsenic involves the central nervous system leading to coma and for doses of 70-80 mg to death. The gastro-intestinal tract, nervous system, the respiratory tract, and the skin can be severely affected (4). It is recommended that, when water is found to contain Arsenic in excess of 0.01 mg/L (W.H.O), the water is considered to be unfit for drinking. Arsenic can be removed by many conventional and non-conventional methods. Adsorption is used widely to remove Arsenic metal from water and industrial wastewater. Adsorption offers significant advantages like low cost, availability, profitability, ease of operation and efficiency, in comparison with conventional methods especially from economical and environmental points of view. Many attempts have been made to remove arsenic from water using various adsorbents. Fly ash is a by-product that is produced by coal fired thermal power plant. From literature review it can be concluded that fly ash has sorptive properties with regard to heavy metals (3).And it was also found that iron containing adsorbents were effective in arsenic removal from aqueous solution hencefly ash coated with iron sulphate was used in the present study (5).
Arsenic Adsorption from Aqueous Solutions on an Fe(III)-Si Binary Oxide Adsorbent
This study investigated arsenate and arsenite adsorption on an iron(III) oxide/silica adsorbent that had a Fe/Si molar ratio of 3. Batch experiments were conducted with regard to adsorption kinetics, isotherms, pH effects and interference of phosphate and sulfate on arsenic adsorption. The adsorption of arsenite was faster than that of arsenate. The adsorption kinetics could be well described by the power function equation for both arsenate and arsenite. The arsenate and arsenite adsorption isotherm data were satisfactorily fitted by the Redlich-Peterson, Freundlich-Langmuir and Langmuir models. The equilibrium adsorption capacity for As(III) was larger than that for As(V). This capacity for both As(III) and As(V) increased with temperature, from 11.3 to 14.9 (mg As/g) for As(V) and from 21.1 to 21.5 (mg As/g) for As(III) when the temperature was increased from 20 to 35oC. The arsenate adsorption was significantly reduced at pH above 7.5, while the arsenite adsorption was almost independent of pH in the range of 3 to 9. The calculated thermodynamic parameters including ∆Go, ∆Ho and ∆So reflected the spontaneous nature of As(V) and As(III) adsorption on this binary oxide adsorbent. The opposite values of ∆Ho indicated that the adsorption of As(V) was exothermic, whereas that of As(III) was endothermic. It was found that the interference of phosphate at pH 7.4 was more significant for arsenate adsorption than for arsenite adsorption. In contrast, sulfate had insignificant interference on arsenic adsorption at the tested sulfate concentration up to 460 mg/L and pH 7.4.
Prediction of a representative point for rail temperature measurement by considering longitudinal deformation
Monitoring rail temperature is very important for determining the safe running speed of trains and to prevent buckling. In general, the maximum variation of the internal rail temperature can be >7 ℃ depending on the point of measurement. However, there is as yet no sufficient information about how to predict the measurement point to represent the thermal deformation due to temperature distribution. In this study, the authors report a new point, called the representative measurement point, at which the rail temperature can be measured. This point considers the average deformation of the rail through structural analysis by adopting experimental and actual rail temperature data. The authors designed and installed a measurement system similar to an actual rail environment. Using the system, various data were acquired (internal/surface rail temperature and weather data) for 10 months. On the basis of these data, an analysis was done to calculate the average deformation point through thermal analysis. Finally, the representative measurement point was proposed as the position at which the average deformation point converges regardless of weather or seasons. The authors believe that the method described herein is advantageous in that it could be used in a high-accuracy temperature-monitoring system and for predicting thermal deformation and buckling.