Remoción electroquímica de arsénico en aguas residuales de procesos de plantas metalúrgicas en el Cantón Camilo Ponce Enríquez.

Abstract

The objective of this research consisted of removing, by applying an electrochemical method, the arsenic that exists in wastewater from metallurgical plants found in the Camilo Ponce Enriquez canton. The mining industry dates back to 16th century and today it is an important economic activity for the country, however, over the years, the environment has been negatively affected, mainly water, due to the wastewater generated from hydrometallurgical processes, these contain excess of lead, cadmium, arsenic among others. The residual water samples were obtained from the tailings facility of the FranRomec benefit, the same one that has an initial arsenic concentration of 0.70 ppm, is used the T-NEC equipment, by electrochemistry means it was determined the kinetics of removal depending on the pH; 3 repetitions were carried out varying the pH at levels of 2, 4 and 8, it was determined the arsenic concentration every 30 minutes for 2.5 hours; the water samples previously removed of arsenic were measured using the absorption spectroscopy technique atomic. Through analysis it was possible to obtain arsenic removal percentages, having that at a pH 4 it was obtained a better removal percentage of 91.90% compared to pH 2 and 8, which had less than 85% the removal percentage, having that the treated water with a final concentration of As of 0.06 ppm according to the provisions of the Ecuadorian standard a pH of 4, while at a pH of 2 and 8 the final concentration is 0.12 ppm. In conclusion, the optimum pH to remove arsenic in wastewater is at a pH 4, since it produced a higher percentage of removal and reached the limits maximum allowable of arsenic in wastewater.