Comparative Study of Iron Removal from Groundwater Using Low Cost Adsorbents

Iron is one of the groundwater contaminants that negatively impact health and the environment. This study is attempted at introducing low cost natural adsorbent for that adsorbs iron from synthetically prepared iron water. Sawdust and barley husks were used as a filter media, either alone or at different mixing ratio of sawdust/barley husks (1:1, 0.5:1, 1:0.5), to study the effect of adsorbent dose on the removal efficiency. Synthetic water of iron was used at different initial concentrations (10, 25, 40, 65, and 80) mg/L to study the effect of initial iron concentration on the removal efficiency. The filtration process was conducted at a surface loading rate of 3 m3/m2.hr. The results showed higher removal efficiency with the increase of iron initial concentration. The results indicated that removal of iron ranged (90% - 99.34%) for all types of filter media. The best removal was found to be 99.34% at a mixing ratio of 0.5:1 (sawdust/barley husks) at 80 mg/L initial concentration. As a conclusion, Removal of iron was very successfully observed with absorbent materials sawdust and barley husk, which makes the treatment of iron even possible in rural areas and when high concentration of iron is present.