Experimental Research of Hg (II) Removal from Aqueous Solutions of HgCl2 with Nano-TiO2]

Mercury removal from aqueous solutions of HgCl2 was studied by indoor simulation experiments, and the effects of three different diameter of particles of Nano-TiO2 ( Nano-Titanium Dioxide) at different dosage, pH, adsorption time and the initial concentration of Hg2+ on the mercury adsorption from simulated wastewater were investigated. The single factor experiments showed that the optimal conditions were: 7.5 g x L(-1) of 5 nm TiO2 or 2.0 g x L(-1) of 100 nm TiO2, pH 8.0, initial concentration of Hg2+ 15 x mg x L(-1) adsorption time 5 min, and under these conditions the adsorption rates reached 99.5% and 99.3%, relatively. When the content of 25 nm TiO2 was 10 g x L(-1), and the other conditions were pH 8.0, initial concentration of Hg2+ 15 mg x L(-1), adsorption time 60 min, the adsorption rate was 62.8%. The Hg(II) removal effects of the TiO2 particles with different diameters followed the order of 100 nm TiO2 > 5 nm TiO2 > 25 nm TiO2. Component adsorption results showed that the 5 nm TiO2 component adsorption effect was superior to its single adsorption effect, while there was little difference between 100 nm TiO2 component adsorption effect and its single adsorption effect. The results of orthogonal experiments indicated that the influencing factors of the adsorption rate followed the order of pH > the initial concentration of Hg2+ > time > dosage. The optimal experiment scheme was: pH 8.0, a dosage of 100 nm Nano-TiO2 of 2.0 g x L(-1) an initial Hg2+ concentration of 25 mg x L(-1) and adsorption time of 10 min. Under the experimental conditions, the maximum adsorption rate reached 99.9%, at the same time, the equilibrium concentration of Hg(II) was 0.033 mg x L(-1) < 0.05 mg x L(-1), below the current enterprise rules of water pollutants in mercury emissions limits. In addition, the maximum adsorptive capacity was 26.95 mg x g(-1). The adsorption isotherm was in line with the Langmuir isotherm equation, indicating that the Hg(II) uptake by 100 nm Nano-TiO2 was typical monolayer adsorption.