REMOVAL OF TRACE ORGANICS BY AQUIFER MATERIAL

Abstract

A study on the removal of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) through aquifer materials was undertaken. The natural aquifer materials from two Indian riverbank filtration (RBF) sites, Delhi and Gauchar were used to carry out batch and column studies. The Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET) surface areas of the aquifer materials collected from Delhi and Gauchar RBF sites were 1.65 and 2.1 m2/g respectively. Adsorption was found to be governed by the pseudo-firstorder kinetics which indicated physisorptive nature of the process. Kinetics of adsorption followed Langmuir isotherm suggesting monolayer adsorption. Intraparticle diffusion was found to be the rate controlling step. Results of column studies gave high retardation factors for the three NSAIDs in the range of 377 to 638 for Gauchar aquifer material and 348 to 556 for Delhi aquifer material, likely due to their low hydrophilicity. Results indicated that the breakthrough of NSAIDs during RBF is likely to take many years. Keywords: adsorption; aquifer material; isotherms; kinetics; non-steroidal anti-inflammator y drugs; retardation factor; riverbank filtration