Heavy metals removal from landfill leachate by coagulation/flocculation process combined with continuous adsorption using eggshell waste materials

The use of agricultural waste materials to remove heavy metals from wastewater is attractive due to its simplicity and economic efficiency. In this study, the applicability of calcined eggshell waste materials (CES) for heavy metals removal from real wastewater were examined via transport column experiment preceded by coagulation/flocculation process.A column packed with granular activated carbon (GAC) is operated in parallel to CES column to evaluate the adsorptive attributes of CES. The findings are assessed from another set of column experiment consisting of sand followed by CES column to evaluate the effect of particulate matter on CES performance toward heavy metals removal. In coagulation experiment, alum addition at an optimum dose (3.0 g/L) reduced the total suspended solids (TSS) by 80%, whereas the Fe, Pb, Zn, Cu, Ni, and Cr were reduced by 80, 77, 76, 73, 56, and 49% respectively. Under the current applied hydrodynamic conditions, using sand column before CES column improved the removal efficiencies of Fe, Pb, Cu, Zn, Ni, and Cr from 50–92%, 55–93%, 60–87%, 53–76%, 45–65%, and 41–60% respectively. The whole results illustrate that CES can be competitive to GAC for heavy metals removal from landfill leachate, mainly if applied after PM removal by sand filtration.