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Removal of hexavalent chromium pollutant and mechanism by heat-treated natural pyrite as an efficiency reactive media for permeable reactive barrier

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Abstract

Chromium pollution in ground water is already very serious and needs to be solved urgently. In the present work, the products of natural pyrite after heat treatment were used as the reactive media for permeable reactive barrier. It found that natural pyrite can progressively convert to pyrrhotite with mixed monoclinic and hexagonal structures or pure hexagonal structure at different heat temperatures in argon atmosphere. The products heated at 600 °C had the highest removal of Cr6+ as compared to pristine pyrite and other heated products. The column experiment showed the service life of the column was 480 PVs. The removal of Cr6+ mechanisms under the batch and column conditions were also investigated in detail and both of them were redox reactions. The present work suggested that heat-treated natural pyrite has good application prospect as an efficient and low-cost reactive media material in permeable reactive barrier for chromium pollution control.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 41831288).

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Author notes

  1. Bin Zhou and Zehua Liu are contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Science, China University of Geosciences (Bei**g), Bei**g, 100083, China

    B. Zhou, Z. Liu & H. Liu

  2. Bei**g Key Laboratory of Materials Utilization of Nonmetallic Minerals and Solid Wastes, National Laboratory of Mineral Materials, School of Materials Science and Technology, China University of Geosciences (Bei**g), Bei**g, 100083, China

    Y. Li, G. Lv, L. Wang & L. Liao

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  1. B. Zhou
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Contributions

HL and LL contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by BZ, ZL and YL. The first draft of the manuscript was written by BZ. Revision of the article was done by HL and LL. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to H. Liu or L. Liao.

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Editorial responsibility: Senthil Kumar Ponnusamy.

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Zhou, B., Liu, Z., Li, Y. et al. Removal of hexavalent chromium pollutant and mechanism by heat-treated natural pyrite as an efficiency reactive media for permeable reactive barrier. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 21, 1537–1548 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-023-05056-8

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