Defluoridation of Aqueous Solution Using Hybrid Sorbents Synthesis and Batch Adsorption Studies

Abstract

Water is an essential natural resource for sustaining life and environment. Ground water newlinecontributes nearly 80% of the drinking water requirement. Ecological factors, natural newlineand/or anthropogenic, attribute to the pollution of ground water by various contaminants. newlinePresence of hazardous contaminants like fluoride, arsenic, nitrate, sulfate, pesticides, newlineother heavy metals etc., in underground water has been reported from different parts of newlineWorld. In many cases, the ground water sources are reported as unsafe for human newlineconsumption due to excess presence of fluoride. Fluoride is widely distributed in the newlinegeological environment and is released into the ground water by slow dissolution of newlinefluorine containing minerals such as fluorite, biotites, topaz and their corresponding host newlinerocks such as granite, basalt, and shale. In India, fluoride is the major inorganic pollutant newlineof natural origin found in groundwater. A number of techniques such as adsorption, newlineprecipitation, ion-exchange, electro-dialysis and reverse osmosis have been used for the newlinedecontamination of fluoride. However, the shortcomings of most of these methods are newlinehigh operational and maintenance cost and complicated procedure involved in the newlinetreatment. Apart from this, some of the other associated problems such as lack of newlinecontaminant selectivity, chemical overdosing, sludge management and economic viability newlinepropel the development of newer techniques and materials for efficient and sustainable newlineuse for community purpose. Among various methods used for defluoridation of water, newlineadsorption is widely used and offers satisfactory results and seems to be more attractive newlinemethod for the removal of fluoride in terms of cost, simplicity of design and operation.