Using Activated Diatomite as Adsorbent for Treatment of Arsenic Contaminated Water

Diatomite or diatomaceous earth (DE) is one of materials which can be used as an adsorbent to treat heavy metal ions from waste water, even there are many factories used it to clean the water for drinking. However, natural DE (raw DE) has very low adsorption capacity because of low specific surface area. In this work, natural DE from Lam Dong province, Viet Nam was demagnetized to remove iron and activated by HCl solution for 90 minutes with concentration of 10% at room condition. Adsorbent capacity was evaluated using As solution and the results show that the activated diatomite has adsorption capacity three times higher than that of raw DE, and the specific surface area of activated diatomite was increased 47.5% with the main chemical composition of 90.8% SiO2and high porosity