Study on Removal of Cr ion from Wastewater Employing Ion Exchange Technique

The presence of Chromium (III) ion in the wastewater from industries can be unfavorable to living organisms. Cr ion in the water will cause harm/damage to human beings as well as to the surrounding environment. Different processes are available for removal of Cr ion existing in electroplating industrial wastewater, such as coagulation, adsorption, and etc. However, some of them results in sludge (coagulation), and some results in solid waste (adsorption), which later requires extra treatment or removal process that might be costly to the companies involved. Ion exchange provides the unique solution to this problem, as the treatment does not result in any kind of waste, but the performance of the resin is very sensitive to the operation conditions, therefore suitable operating parameters for Cr ion removal need to be investigated.
In this project, the removal of Cr ion from wastewater using a strong acid and strong base resin will be investigated. The purpose of the project is to determine the optimum condition for the removal of Cr ion from the wastewater solution. The experiments are performed under different pH values and different pollutant’s initial concentration, and then be evaluated. Atomic Adsorption Spectrophotometer (AAS) is later used to measure the Cr ion concentration after treatment of ion exchange, to be compared against the permitted environmental limit. The effect of wastewater treatment to the characterization of the resins is also determined by using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). Results obtained from this project can help to design an appropriate technique to remove Cr ion from metal industry wastewater which is by using ion exchange process, in order to minimize the concentration level of heavy metal ions in industrial wastewater before discharged into the environment.