Testing of potential reactive materials for removal of heavy metals from contaminated water

One of the most important environmental problems of the last decade is water (groundwater, surface water) contamination, which poses a significant ecological risk to the environment and human health. Permeable reactive barrier (PRB) is an efficient technology for remediating contaminated water on industrial and mining sites. The PRB technology is based on an emplacement of a reactive material in the subsurface designed to intercept a contaminated groundwater plume. The contaminated plume flows through the reactive material where the contaminants are transformed into environmentally acceptable species. The aim of the present study was to test experimentally caustic calcined magnesia, limestone, dolomite and blast furnace slag as potential reactive materials for the PRB technology. The effects of the chemical composition of contaminated water and water-to-reactive material weight ratio on the efficiency of heavy metals removal were investigated. The results have shown that caustic calcined magnesite (CCM-KK) was the most suitable reactive material for removal of cations Fe3+, Al3+, Cu2+, Zn2+, Ni2+, and Mn2+. This reactive material was able to increase the pH of the contaminated water to the value of about 10 and the efficiency of selected cations removal up to 100 % was observed.