Environmental Remediation of Desalination Plant Outfall Brine Discharge from Heavy Metals and Salinity Using Halloysite Nanoclay
Naif S. Aljohani,
Radwan K. Al-Farawati,
Ibrahim I. Shabbaj,
Bandar A. Al-Mur,
Yasar N. Kavil,
Mohamed Abdel Salam
Affiliations
Naif S. Aljohani
Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Meteorology, Environment and Arid Land Agriculture, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80208, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Radwan K. Al-Farawati
Marine Chemistry Department, Faculty of Marine Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80207, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Ibrahim I. Shabbaj
Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Meteorology, Environment and Arid Land Agriculture, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80208, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Bandar A. Al-Mur
Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Meteorology, Environment and Arid Land Agriculture, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80208, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Yasar N. Kavil
Marine Chemistry Department, Faculty of Marine Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80207, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Mohamed Abdel Salam
Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Meteorology, Environment and Arid Land Agriculture, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80208, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Halloysite (HS) nanoclay was used for the environmental treatment of desalination brine water discharge via the adsorptive removal of selected heavy metals ions; zinc, iron, nickel, and copper, as well as salinity. Different techniques were used for the characterization of the HS nanoclay and it was found that HS nanoclay exists as transparent hollow nanotubes with high surface area. The study showed that most of the heavy metal ions could be removed successfully using the HS nanoclay in a few minutes, at normal conditions. The adsorptive removal of zinc, iron, nickel, and copper, as well as salinity on HS nanoclay was explored kinetically. It was concluded that the pseudo-second-order kinetic model was able to describe the remediation process. In addition, it was found that most of the heavy metals and salinity were removed from the desalination plant outfall brine discharge and the final concentrations were lower than those in the control and standard samples.