Formaldehyde is one of the most chemically active compounds which is discharged with untreated or just partially treated industrial wastewater. It is hazardous for environment and humans. Formaldehyde vapors can strongly irritate skin, can cause damage to eyes and harm respiratory tract. As long as formaldehyde causes a toxic effect on environment and living organisms, it is necessary to remove it from wastewater which is directed to natural water. There are many methods used for formaldehyde removal from wastewater: biological method, evaporation, membrane separation method. Most of them have disadvantages. Adsorption method has many advantages: it is fast, cheap, and universal, and can be widely used, therefore it was chosen for this research. Experiment was carried out with natural zeolite in different contact time with different concentration formaldehyde solutions. Concentration of formaldehyde was determined applying the Photocolorimetric Method. Method is based on reaction of formaldehyde with chromotropic acid and determination of formaldehyde concentration. Determined average sorption efficiency was highest when formaldehyde concentration was lowest, e. g. 2 mg/l (45.94%) after eight hours of contact time with adsorbent. Sorption efficiency was increasing when the contact time increased, but when the contact time increased to 12 hours, sorption efficiency stayed the same because of the saturation of zeolite.

Article in: English

Article published: 2015-09-29