DESENVOLVIMENTO E ANÁLISE DE UM MÉTODO ALTERNATIVO PARA REMOÇÃO DE METAIS POTENCIALMENTE TÓXICOS DA ÁGUA EMPREGANDO MATERIAIS SORVENTES

The current work presents the use of a sorbent material to develop an alternative method for removing lead and barium from public water supplies. The sorbent material used was coconut fiber, which in addition to mitigating environmental pollution by reusing discarded waste, aids in the treatment of public water supplies by removing potentially toxic ions where conventional methods are not effective. In the alternative method used, we have a system of fixed bed reactors connected in series, with a volume of 0.250 L in each reactor. To characterize the adsorption process, we analyzed the variables pH, contact time, initial metal concentration, concentration of the sorbent material, and flow rate. Analysis of variance (ANOVA), multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), and the T-test were carried out. The parameters initial metal concentration and flow rate were shown to be non-significant for the confidence interval adopted in the conditions of the current work. The removal of Pb2+ and Ba2+ ions was greater than 60% in all the parameters studied, and in a single pass through the reactors, showing the viability of this procedure. Coconut fiber presented appropriate characteristics for the biosorption of lead and barium ions, constituting a sustainable and promising process to be used together with classical water treatment processes to remove potentially toxic metals.