Magnetic flocculation technology was investigated for the removal of copper and zinc ions from simulated tin smelting wastewater, and the effects of magnetic powder dosage, flocculant dosage, and pH on the removal of copper and zinc ions were estimated. The results show that the effluent quality is poor with magnetic powder, PAC and PAM separately dosed, but when magnetic powder is combined with PAC or PAM, the excellent effluent quality is obtained with the removal rate of the copper and zinc ions of more than 90% and 70% respectively. In addition, under the condition of magnetic powder dosage of 30g/L and PAC dosage of 60mg/L, pH show more significant effect on zinc ions than copper ions with pH increased from 5 to 10, and the removal rate of zinc ions increase by about 24%, while the removal rate of copper ions only increase by about 2.5%. Compared with the system with single metal ion, the coexistent ion system has excellent heavy metal removal efficiency, namely the copper ions removal rate increase by 3.42%, and the zinc ions removal rate increase by 0.46%. Moreover, magnetic flocculation technology presents the characteristics of shorter time of flocculation and sedimentation, smaller volume of the flocs and faster separation velocity.

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