Application of Donnan Dialysis for Cyanide Removal from Aqueous Solutions

Cyanide ion, is an environmentally significant pollutant in many industrial wastewaters. Therefore, a considerable number of methods have been studied for the wastewater treatment containing cyanide. the goal of our work consists in applying a simple and economic process for solving this problem of pollution. The removal of cyanide ions by using three anion exchange membranes has been studied under Donnan dialysis conditions as a function of initial concentration of cyanide, receiver phase composition and co-existence anions in the feed phase. The feasibility of the system was examined and the highest cyanide removal was obtained when the initial concentration of cyanide on the feed phase was 10-2 M. In addition, the accompanying counter-anions were also influenced in the cyanide transport in the order chloride > hydrogenocarbonate > sulphate. It was also observed that the cyanide transport efficiency of the Neosepta AFN was higher than that of the Neosepta AM3 and IONAC MA3475XL membranes. The better result for AFN membrane was obtained with chloride ion as a counter-anion in the receiver phase.