ASSESSING THE EFFICIENCY OF CEMENT KILN DUST FOR HEAVY METALS REMOVAL FROM SIMULATED POLLUTED WATER

Abstract

Heavy metal contamination in the environment is unavoidable issue. Heavy metals directly influence human being lives since they concentrate in the food cycle, even in low amounts. Some heavy metals pollute the water resources, in dangerous limits for human life. The current study suggested the cement kiln dust (CKD) as a low-cost and effective adsorbent to remove heavy metals ions from solutions. Therefore, the study investigated the copper, lead and cadmium removal from aqueous solution by cement kiln dust (CKD) as industrial by-product. The laboratory experiment included two factors. The first factor consists of three different diameter particles i.e., 50,100, and 150 . While the second factor included three concentrations of each of copper, cadmium, and lead ions namely 50,100, and 200 mg. l-1. The cement kiln dust was identified by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) to determine its chemical characteristics. Also, pH and EC were measured for the cement kiln dust solution. Before the study starting, the initial concentration of the copper, cadmium, and lead were measured in the CKD power. The study was conducted at temperature of 25 . The removal efficiency was calculated at two different time of shaking, namely 1 and 2 hours. The obtained results indicated that CKD can be used as a low cost and effective sorbent for copper, cadmium, and lead ions from polluted water. Moreover, the results show that the high pH and high surface area for the cement kiln dust have the main effect of making the CKD efficient adsorbent material.