Natural filtration unit for removal of heavy metals from water

Occurrence of iron in the potable water is responsible for several issues related to environmental, economic, and public health. Water remediation from iron is very vital step for ensuring the safety of potable water. Hence, many treatment techniques, such as chemical precipitation and reverse osmosis, have been proposed in recent literature. However, these methods are either expensive or possess some negative environmental impacts. This paper therefore studies the possibility of utilizing farms' wastes (straw and reed) to produce a filtration system for remediating water from iron ions. This natural filtration cell (NFC) was manufactured by mixing equal weights of straw and reed (1:1 ratio), while the artificial iron solution (10.0 mg.L^-1) was synthesized by dissolving suitable amount of iron sulfates in deionized water. This artificial solution was treated in the NFC at different retention times (RTS) (ranging from 10 to 90 minutes) and initial pH of solution (IPS) (ranging from 4 to 9). The remaining iron in the solution, during the course of filtration process, was calculated utilizing a spectrophotometer and a standard iron cuvette test. The outcomes of this study revealed that 33.1% of iron was absorbed at RTS and IPS of 80 minutes and 7.0, respectively. Even though the research's outcomes proved that the NFC possesses an acceptable capacity for iron removal from water, light brownish color was formed in the produced water, so another suitable treatment technique is needed to decolorize the produced.