Treatment of Grey Water Using Jordanian Natural Zeolites

Abstract

A system of a series five columns was designed to treat and purify effluent grey water generated from washing rock samples from the laboratory of the Jordanian Oil Shale Company (JOSCO). Each column was loaded with a bed of either white sand or faujasite-phillipsite tuff (Zeolite) or charcoal. The faujasite-phillipsite tuff from Jabal Hannoun of Northeast Jordanian Badia was selected because it has suitable mineralogical and technical properties that enable it to be used as an ion-exchanger and adsorbent. These include suitable grain size, total cation exchange capacity, and total zeolite grade. The JOSCO labs grey water has very high turbidity (3714 NTU) and electrical conductivity (EC) (1200 μs/ cm) and is contaminated with Cu and Fe compared with tap water, where the turbidity is 2.29 NTU and the EC is 796 μs/ cm. The grey water was treated by percolation through specially designed treatment columns as a whole system. The zeolite bed loaded in the column has an acceptable efficiency to remove Ca and Na, and an excellent efficiency to remove Fe, Cu, and Cd from the grey water. A beds of zeolite, white sand and coal loaded in separated columns are capable of cleaning the effluent from the lab at a cost of less than 200 JD/ ton of zeolite and 160 JD/ ton of white sand and 385 JD/ ton of charcoal.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90259 ©2016 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 19-22, 2016