REMOVAL OF HEAVY METAL FROM AQUEOUS MEDIA USING HYBRID CLAY ADSORBENT 1.

0 INTRODUCTION

Heavy metals (HMs) refer to a term used generally to describe certain elements which occur in lower (trace) amounts in various environmental media and are potentially harmful, nonbiodegradable and accumulate in the living organism through the food chain. They constitute an ill-defined group of inorganic chemical hazards, and those commonly found at contaminated sites are lead (Pb), chromium (Cr), arsenic (Ar), zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), mercury (Hg) and nickel (Ni). As these metals are found in various parts of the world, their anthropogenic sources are closely connected with the advent of technology, industrialization and urbanization which thereby result from fossil fuel and coal combustion, industrial effluents and solid waste disposal, land application of fertilizers, mining and metal processing, amidst others. Natural sources on the other hand, which include volcanic eruption (releasing arsenics), wind-blown dusts, weathering of mineral deposits, bush burning, have their results extremely considerably lower to the former sources. And as virtually no activities are taking place in the Antarctic region, the background concentration of HMs in this region could be used as a control for the rest parts of the world. Following these emissions from various sources as mentioned above, the environmental media- soil, water, air and biota- have been the receptors, serving as environmental indicators, with final bioaccumulation in living organisms, human beings as the final target. As they persist for a very long time in the environment due to their resistance to microbial and chemical degradation, they build up in plants and animals. The build-up comes in place especially when these organisms can no longer regulate these metals by excretion (Bennett et al., 2001). This is called bioaccumulation. Animals feeding on bioaccumulators take in a higher level of contaminants. Those animals feeding on them gain even higher inputs of contaminants, and bio-accumulate even in greater concentration until it reaches the animal at highest trophic level obtaining the highest concentration; this is otherwise known as biomagnification. And as we know that man, the target organism, is always at the highest trophic point, efforts have to be made to substantially remove or reduce their concentrations from the environment. It should be borne on mind however that persistent has been one the major mechanisms by which heavy metals reach the final target.

Therefore to protect human health and the environment from the hydra-headed menace of HMs in their ramifying chronic and acute toxic effectsdepressed growth, kidney enlargement, hypertension, cardiac disease (Bennett et al.,2001), the government, the stakeholders in the public and private sectors and the scientists, have been urged to come up with rich paradigm to curtailing the effects. Sequel to the suggestion, several methods have evolved over the years on the removal of these metal ions present in industrial wastewaters and soils. Some of them are chemical precipitations, conventional coagulation, reverse osmosis, ion exchange and adsorption on activated carbon. Out of these methods, adsorption appears to be the most widely used for the removal of HMs (Ghosh & Bhattaryyra, 2002). Adsorption is an important physicochemical process that occurs at the solid-liquid interface. It is considered a preferred method for removal, recovery and recycling of toxic heavy metals. Natural and modified clay minerals have been studied as adsorbents for the removal of various toxic and hazardous pollutants of major concern to the environment. This thesis however focuses on the treatment of aqueous media that are polluted with these heavy metals using hybrid feldspar clay adsorbent.

REFERENCES Bennett, P.M., Jepson, P.D., Law, R.J., Jones, B.R., Kuiken, T., Baker, J.R., Rogan, E. and Kirkwood, J.K. 2001. Exposure to heavy metals and infectious disease mortality in harbour porpoises from England and Wales. Environmental pollution 112:33-40.