Biogenic Sulfide Production At Low Ph And Selected Metal Precipitation For E Waste Leachate Treatment

Metal contamination in the environment is one of the persisting global issues since it not only disturbs the environmental quality but also the environment and human health. The major contribution to this problem arises mainly from anthropogenic activities such as industries. Metal scarcity has become more severe lately where some elements have been predicted to be fully eradicated in several decades from the earth crust. Recently, researchers have focused their attention to recover these metals from the waste stream and reuse it in industrial production processes. The use of agricultural wastes as a potential low cost adsorbent for heavy metal removal from wastewater is one of the most versatile technologies. In this study among the different adsorbents tested, groundnut shell established high removal efficiencies with fewer requirements for further post treatment for Cu, Pb and Zn removal. Furthermore, the batch experiments on the main effects of process parameters (pH, adsorbent dosage, contact time and initial metal concentration) showed a major effect on metal uptake and removal efficiency. For material regeneration, 0.2 M HCl was the most effective desorbing solution that did not alter the efficiency, up to three cycles of adsorption and desorption. The use of sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) in bioreactors is another technology that can be applied for the treatment of metal contaminated wastewater. The SRB reduce sulfate into sulfide which further reacts with metals to form metal sulfide precipitates. The inverse fluidized bed (IFB) bioreactor is the configuration which shows prominence in utilizing SRB technology for metal contaminated wastewater treatment. Two IFB bioreactors were operated at different pH (7.0 and 5.0). The sulfate reducing activity (SRA) at pH 7.0 was higher than at pH 5.0, which shows that pH is the main factor that affects SRA. However, thiosulfate showed a higher efficiency than sulfate as an alternate electron acceptor. The sulfide produced using thiosulfate as the electron acceptor was 157.0 mg/L, while only 150.2 mg/L was produced using sulfate and it required an adaptation period at pH 5.0 prior to successful operation. Moreover, the IFB had shown its high efficiency for Cu, Ni and Zn removal from synthetic wastewater. The removal of Cu and Zn were more than 90% at pH 7.0 and 5.0, at an initial metal concentration of 25 mg/L. On the other hand, Ni removal was not removed at an initial concentration of 25 mg/L as it showed toxic effects toward SRB. There are various types of metal contaminated waste streams which pose as a good candidate for metal recovery include electronics waste (e-waste). This e-waste has a high potential as secondary source of metal to recover especially base metals such as Cu, Ni and Zn. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) of personal computers were evaluated as the potential secondary source of Cu, Ni and Zn using hydrometallurgical and sulfide precipitation methods. The optimal conditions for metal leaching were 0.1 M HNO3 with a liquid to solid ratio of 20 using PCBs of 0.5 - 1.0 mm particle size at 60 °C which resulted in 400 mg Cu/g PCBs. With sulfide precipitation at a stochiometric ratio of 1:1 (Cu:S2-), the recovery of Cu was very effective up to 90% from the leachate which accounted to approximately 0.41 g Cu/g PCBs, while Ni and Zn recovery were 40% (0.005 g Ni/g PCBs) and 50% (0.006 g Zn/g PCBs) for leachate from an upflow leaching column, respectively. This indicates Cu can be recovered from PCBs using sulfide precipitation.