The fine particles of schwertmannite as an iron oxyhydroxide adsorbent has been suggested as a novel and strong Cr(VI) sorbent for treatment of Cr-contaminated industrial wastewater. The removal process was conducted in both batch and continuous trials. As a result of the batch experiments, the maximal adsorption capacity of the schwertmannite was obtained as 178 mg/g which was quite high amount in comparison with the usual applied Cr(VI) sorbents in the literatures. The continuous removal process involved a combination of a fixed bed column with a high gradient magnetic field which was firstly introduced as a novel designation of a fixed bed column to overcome the difficulties accompanied with the application of some especial fine particle adsorbents through the fixed-beds. The experimental results revealed that the magnetization force had a great function in this process to control the shape and the fitness of the bed during the sorption test as well as to simplify the experimental set-up.KEY WORDS: magnetic fixed bed column; Cr removal; high magnetic field; schwertmannite; wastewater treatment; electromagnetic processing of materials.tion, however, has some inherent limitations to be utilized as a continuous filtering system because of time-dependent plugging and saturation of its matrix.The most optimal configuration for continuous-flow sorption is the packed-bed column which gets gradually saturated from the feed to the solution exit end. High-quality fixed-bed column hardware is the subject of several US patents. In our study work, the experimental trials of the process have been conducted for many times by directly packing the column with the fine particle size of schwertmannite as the most strong Cr adsorbents. Extremely fine particles and mud like properties of the adsorbent, however, has caused a verity of problems to the system such as high pressure drop, mass transfer resistance and so on. To solve the problems dealing with the system, a magnetic fixed-bed column, as a novel designation of the fixed-bed columns, has been presented in this study. Moreover, the batch Cr(VI) adsorption data containing equilibrium models using the schwertmannite adsorbent and also the effect of pH on the adsorption to predict the sorption characteristics of the adsorbent have been given.
Materials and MethodsAll chemicals used were of high purity and analytical grades. The schwertmannite powder as the chemical adsorbent of Cr(VI) in these experiments was made by homogenous hydrolysis of iron ferric salt (Fe 2 (SO 4 ) 3 · nH 2 O) according to the methods mentioned in our pervious work.
14)Stock solution of 130 mg/L of Cr(VI) for use in the fixed column experiment was prepared by dissolving of a known amount of K 2 Cr 2 O 7 in dionized water. In the batch mode adsorption trials, 50 mL of the solution with desired concentrations of Cr and the adsorbent were mixed in a bottle of 100 mL and shaken for about 5 h to reach to the equilibrium state. Then the yielded solution was filtered through a paper filter and then chromium c...