Avaliação da potencialidade da humina na adsorção/dessorção dos trihalometanos

Abstract

The use of chlorine and other compounds to treat water for human consumption has attracted the attention of the scientific community, due to reactions with natural organic matter (NOM) that could generate subproducts undesirable from the human health perspective. The trihalomethanes (THMs) are frequently found in water treatment systems, with chloroform (CHCl3), dichlorobromomethane (CHBrCl2), dibromochloromethane (CHBr2Cl) and bromoform (CHBr3) being the most common. Alternative adsorbents for removal of these compounds are sought, that are economically viable, easily disposed of and readily regenerated without losing their properties. The objective of the present work was to assess the performance of batch and fixed bed column systems, using humin in natura and immobilized on sodium silicate, respectively, for adsorption of the principal THMs found in water supply systems, as well as to determine the regeneration capacity of humin following thermal desorption. Kinetically, adsorption of THMs by humin followed a pseudo-second order reaction, with more than 50 % removal in the first 5 minutes for all compounds studied, and equilibrium described by the Freundlich model reached in 240 minutes. The THM adsorption results were significant at p < 0.05 for both batch (74.6 83.2 % removal) and column (99.7 % removal in optimized tests) experiments, and were significantly (p < 0.05) influenced by flow rate and bed height. The potential of humin for removal of the THMs was confirmed in thermal desorption tests, when increases in adsorption capacity (significant at p < 0.05) of 18.88 % (CHBr3), 18.09 % (CHBr2Cl), 24.16 % (CHBrCl2), 20.15 % (CHCl3) and 24.16 % (total trihalomethanes) were observed 17 between the first and fifth uses of the same adsorbent bed. The results demonstrate the potential of humin for removal of THMs.