The Ability of Peat in Adsorption of Biogenic Elements from Water Environment

Abstract

The possibilities of using a natural sorbent – peat for the wastewater treatment of ammonium ions and phosphates discharged from runoff into natural reservoirs at high concentrations were investigated. The peat of from the Vereshchytsya-Yanovske deposit of Ukraine of two depths: lowland and upland, was studied. It was established that the lowland samples of peat have higher sorption properties to the investigated pollutants from the aquatic environment than the upland ones. A greater moisture loss in the lowland peat species was observed, as well as the major part of the plant fibers in its structure, which explains its sorption properties. Due to the high content of humic substances, the extraction of cations from the water by peat can occur due to the ion exchange. The adsorption isotherms of both ammonium and phosphate ions on the top and lowland peat species of the Vereshchytsya-Yanovske deposit were constructed and presented. The adsorption isotherm obtained in the experimental studies was used to mathematically establish the isotherm equation, using the Langmuir and Freundlich models to describe the equilibrium of the sorption processes under study. The degree of appropriation of linear equations to the experimental data was evaluated on the basis of the deterministic coefficient, which enabled to determine that in each case the Langmuir equations describe the adsorption isotherms more adequately.

Keywords

• adsorption isotherms
• adsorption
• peat
• coefficient of determination
• phosphates
• ammonium nitrogen
• wastewater
• langmuir and freundlich models