The performance of electrocoagulation using iron electrodes for the treatment of aqueous solutions containing chromium hexavalent ions using fixed bed electrochemical batch reactor was studied. A new anode design consisting of hex nuts was connected together with a thin rode of iron. The helical shape in the nuts increases the anode surface area allowing high chromium removal rate within very short coagulation time. The effect of different parameters affecting the electrocoagulation process, such as initial hexavalent chromium concentration, applied current, electrolyte type [sodium chloride and sodium sulfate] concentration and initial pH of the solution was investigated. The optimum conditions for the EC process by using the present cell based on minimum initial hexavalent chromium concentration, energy consumption and operating cost were 100 mg of Cr(VI)/l, 0.55 A, 1.5 g of sodium chloride/land pH of 1. ª 2015 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Every year, tons of precious and/or toxic metals are thrown away in industrial liquid effluents and most frequently directly in natural environment. The recovery of those metals in dilute solutions is an everyday problem associating both ecology and economy. Copper is among the most prevalent and valuable metal used by industry. Cementation is one of the most effective and economic techniques for recovering toxic and or valuable metals from industrial waste solution and from leach liquors obtained by leaching low grade copper ore. The present study was carried out to investigate the removal of copper metal ions from synthetic waste water by cementation using a rotating iron cylinder. The study covered the effect of different parameters in batch mode which are: Initial copper concentrations, pH values, rotational speed, and reaction temperature on the rate of cementation. The rate of cementation was found to increase with increasing rotational speed, temperature, and pH till a value of 2.1 and then starts to decrease .On the other hand as the initial copper ions concentration increases from 0.2 to 0.4 M the rate of copper ions removal increase. The rate of copper recovery ranged from 10% to 90% per hour depending on the operating conditions Rates of cementation which can be expressed in terms of the rate of mass transfer were correlated to the controlling parameters by dimensionless equation: Sh=0.18 SC0.33 Re0.961. This equation can be used in the design and operation of high-productivity cementation reactor.

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In the present work, the effect of solvent on the extraction of the organic matter from Quseir's oil shales was studied. The experimental results revealed that the extraction yield obtained by the tetrahydrofuran was very high compared to other solvents. In addition, the solvent had a significant effect on the yield and the composition of the obtained oil. The analysis carried out on the extracted oil showed that the tetrahydrofuran was a very efficient solvent for oil shale extraction, giving a better quality of the oils extracted containing a large proportion of aromatics compounds and fewer amounts of sulphur and paraffin compounds.

Egyptian oil shale was investigated as a source of adsorbent for removal of zinc from aqueous solutions. Egyptian oil shale (OS) was used as an adsorbent without any treatment, then thermally activated in absence of air (Carbo-OS), and separately burned to produce ash (OS-ash). Egyptian oil shale was also chemically activated by zinc chloride (ZnCl2-OS) respectively. The present study aims at investigating the removal of Zn2+ ions from an aqueous solution via adsorption and thermal and chemical activation of locally sourced oil shale. Also, the effect of different operation parameters, like heavy metal and sorbent concentration as well as adsorbent’s uptake time of heavy metals is studied. It was found that activated oil shale successfully removed high amount of Zn from an aqueous solution. As the adsorbent concentration was increased keeping zinc concentration constant, greater metal removal from the solution was observed. And, as the zinc concentration was increased keeping sorbent concentration constant, higher metal loading per unit weight of the sorbent was achieved. The Langmuir isotherm model fit the experimental data of Zn2+ ions. The results indicated that oil shale could be used to adsorb Zn2+ ions and that thermally activated oil shale resulted in 99% removal for Zn2+.