Study on removal of beryllium from uranium beryllium ore wastewater by acid leaching activated carbon and its mechanism

With the exploitation of uranium–beryllium ore, the waste and wastewater produced have received extensive attention. There are a lot of toxic and harmful substances in uranium–beryllium ore, among which beryllium has not been widely concerned. This paper used hydrochloric acid (HCl) pretreatment activated carbon (H-AC) to study the removal of beryllium from uranium beryllium ore wastewater. This experiment explored the influence of reaction time, reaction temperature, and other conditions on the adsorption effect. It concluded that the adsorption efficiency was 99% when pH = 5, the amount of adsorbent was 2 g/L, and the temperature was 25 °C. The effects of Be–U, Be–Mn, Be–Zn, Be–Fe and, Be–Al binary systems on the adsorption of beryllium by H-AC were analyzed. The results show that the adsorption capacity of H-AC to beryllium is not affected by the coexisting ions. According to thermodynamics, the adsorption process is a spontaneous endothermic single-layer adsorption, and the maximum adsorption capacity fitted by thermodynamics is 30.63 mg/g. Kinetic fitting showed that chemical adsorption was the primary process, and the reaction was intense in the early stage. This study provides a new idea for removing beryllium from uranium beryllium ore wastewater, and H-AC can be considered a potential adsorbent for removing beryllium from industrial wastewater.