Detection of Copper in Wastewater

1
Detection of Copper in Wastewater

• Seth Holm Chem4101
• December 2009

2
Problem

• Wastewater from mines and landfills have
  harmful levels of copper pollution.
• Rainwater carries the pollution into our water
  supplies.
• Ingesting water with high copper levels can
  cause health issues ranging anywhere from stomach
  distress to brain damage.

• Hypothesis
• There are harmful levels of copper in certain
  industrial wastewaters. Many expensive filtration
  devices are available but not widely used. The
  efficiency and cost effectiveness of peat filters
  needs to be determined.

3
Overview

• Ion exchange mechanisms allow for filtration and
  recycling copper.

• The EPA5 limits copper levels in drinking water
  to 1.3 ppm.
• Current methods of filtration are not efficient
  and have high costs.
• Copper is a useful and important raw material.

4
Methods of Detection4
IR Spectroscopy
Spectrofluorometry

• Accurate
• Simple and Fast
• Reproducible
• Chelating reagent required
• Higher limit of detection
• More sample preparation

• Chelating reagent required
• pH dependent (because of chelate)
• More sample preparation required
• Multiple samples simultaneously analyzed

5
ICP-AES For Copper Analysis6

• Few interferences (Ti, Mo)
• Low Limit of Detection
• Easy Operation
• Simple sample preparation
• Common analytical
• instrument

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Perkin-Elmer Optima 5300 DV3,5

• Cost 50,000 with auto sampler
• LOD 5 ppb
• LOQ 17 ppb
• Dynamic range of 4-5 orders of magnitude
• High resolution
• Easy to use
• Simple sample preparation
• Computer controlled
• Multi-element analysis

7
Experiment1

• Preserve gt50ml of sample to a pHlt2 with nitric
  acid, dilute to 100ml.
• Pump 1L of the remaining sample through an
  APTsorb (modified peat) filled column. Then
  preserve sample.

• Filter samples through a 0.45µm screen.
• Run each sample in triplicates through the
  instrument for QC .
• Use controls of known copper concentration to
  calibrate the instrument and data.
• Determine initial and final copper
  concentrations from the obtained data.

APTsorb1
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Data Analysis1

• To analyze the data obtained a calibration curve
  would be produced from the controls. The initial
  and final copper concentrations of the wastewater
  would then be determined from their ICP-AES data.
• Past Experiments
• A study was conducted in 2009 by American Peat
  Technologies on Sudan mine wastewater. They
  concluded that it would cost approximately
  20,000 to treat all of the mines wastewater per
  year using their APTsorb product.
• Copper levels were successfully reduced to below
  5 ppb. This is well below the EPAs safe drinking
  standards.
• This filtration process has significantly lower
  costs then other comparable filtration methods
  (ranging from 100,000 to 300,000 per year).
• Copper adsorbed onto the APTsorb product can be
  stripped off using an acid wash and recycled.

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Conclusion

• ICP-AES is an accurate and precise instrument for
  the analysis of copper containing solutions.
• The APTsorb product produced by American Peat
  Technology is a cost effective way to treat
  wastewater.
• Installing similar ion-exchange filtration
  systems at productive copper mines will
  significantly reduced their water pollution.
• By stripping the copper from the APTsorb the
  copper mines can become more productive as well
  as more environmentally friendly.

10
References

• Paul Eger, The Use of Peat Pellets to Remove
  Trace metals from Mine Drainage (2009)
• T.D. Martin, C.A. Brockhoff, J.T. Creed, EPA
  DETERMINATION OF METALS AND TRACE ELEMENTS IN
  WATER AND WASTES BY INDUCTIVELY COUPLED
  PLASMA-ATOMIC EMISSION SPECTROMETRY (1994)
• http//www.personal.psu.edu/hxg3/MCL/icpaes.htm,
  accessed 12/1/09
• Skoog, D. Holler, F. Crouch, S. Principles of
  Instrumental Analysis, 6th ed.
• http//www.epa.gov/ogwdw000/lcrmr/index.html,
  accessed 12/1/09
• http//www.oil-analysis.org/icp_aes.html,
  accessed 12/1/09