EVALUATION OF WASTE SLAG TO REMOVE TARGET METALS FROM INDUSTRIAL STORMWATER RUNOFF

Abstract

Contaminated industrial stormwater runoff can contribute elevated high organic and inorganic pollution mass loads to receiving surface water bodies. Metals, such as cadmium (Cd), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn) and zinc (Zn) are nonbiodegradable and can accumulate in living tissue. The objective of this study was to evaluate two waste slag: (1) Air-Cooled Blast Furnace Slag (ACBFS), (2) Open-Hearth Slag (OHS) produced during iron and steel production in removing target metals (Cd, Fe, Mn, Zn) from industrial stormwater runoff. These slags are evaluated based on their metal removal and adsorption capacity. Bench-scale batch adsorption experiments were conducted using a shaker table with actual industrial stormwater runoff obtained from a Biomass Power Generation facility in Nova Scotia, Canada and synthetic water simulated closely to the actual stormwater runoff. The results indicate that 90% of Cd, Fe, Mn and Zn were removed when OHS and ACBFS were used. This study also investigated the effect of natural organic matter (NOM) presence in stormwater runoff in terms of adsorption capacity and final total concentration of metals.