Decontamination of water: adsorption of heavy metals to hematite particles, derived from ferroxane, and a comparison of different filtration process designs

"The presence of heavy metal ions in water poses a major environmental health risk to local residents.Industrial waste water often contains heavy metal ions, e.g., chromium, lead and nickel. If the waste water is not properly treated prior to discharge, these highly toxic metal ions may leak into the ground water. A warning example is the highly contaminated river called Matanza-Riachuelo in Argentina. Environmental factors such as diarrheal diseases, respiratory diseases, and cancer are significant public health problems associated with the multiple industries in the basin which are responsible for the high level of heavy metal contamination. This issue is aggravated by inadequate infrastructure in the nearby informal settlements, where residents are left with few options for drinking water. To address this problem, a user-friendly, low energy demanding and low cost treatment technology shall be developed for households, schools or other small-scale application at Instituto Technologico de Buenos Aires (ITBA), Argentina." Proyecto final Ingeniería Química (grado) - Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires - Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Aachen, 2014