Advanced material and approach for metal ions removal from aqueous solutions

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 5; no. 1; p. 8992
• Main Authors: Turhanen, Petri A., Vepsäläinen, Jouko J., Peräniemi, Sirpa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 11-03-2015; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 704/172; Adsorption; Aqueous solutions; Cations; Groundwater; Groundwater mining; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; Ions - chemistry; Metal ions; Metals; Metals, Heavy - chemistry; multidisciplinary; Organophosphonates - metabolism; Science; Sodium chloride; Solutions - chemistry; Waste Water - chemistry; Water Purification - methods
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep08992

A Novel approach to remove metals from aqueous solutions has been developed. The method is based on a resin free, solid, non-toxic, microcrystalline bisphosphonate material, which has very low solubility in water (59 mg/l to ion free Milli-Q water and 13 mg/l to 3.5% NaCl solution). The material has been produced almost quantitatively on a 1 kg scale (it has been prepared also on a pilot scale, ca. 7 kg) and tested successfully for its ability to collect metal cations from different sources, such as ground water and mining process waters. Not only was this material highly efficient at collecting several metal ions out of solution it also proved to be regenerable and reusable over a number of adsorption/desorption, which is crucial for environmental friendliness. This material has several advantages compared to the currently used approaches, such as no need for any precipitation step.