| Conventional techniques used for the removal of heavy metals from water include chemical precipitation, ion exchange resin, reverse osmosis, solvent extraction and membrane techniques. The objective of this research was to evaluate the ability of sawdust to adsorb Europium and Thulium ions from aqueous solutions. The procedure was to measure the disappearance of radioactive versions of these ions as they were adsorbed. The results were that saturation was completed after approximately half an hour and up to 100 g/ton rare earth was adsorbed. The thermodynamic quantities DeltaH, DeltaS and DeltaG worked out for each metal ion indicate endothermic and spontaneous nature of sorption. We concluded that sawdust makes the potential cost of a recovery system much lower than other more conventional techniques. |
