Caracterización de agua residual proveniente de la industria automotriz del cantón Ambato y su tratamiento por adsorción para remoción de metales

Abstract

Most of the residual effluents are discharged into bodies of water without any type of pre-treatment, which increases the risk of contamination of surface and groundwater. This experimental project consists of a physicochemical characterization and a pre- treatment of the residual effluent generated in several car laundries of the Ambato canton to suggest alternative treatments for the removal of metals present in the effluent, in order to be disposed of properly. For this, random samples were collected from the laundries at different points for subsequent homogenization, these samples were characterized through 14 physicochemical parameters. These results were compared with the current Texto Unificado de Legislación Secundaria de Medio Ambiente (TULSMA), where it was observed that they do not comply with some parameters established by the standard. On the other hand, for its pre-treatment with adsorption isotherms, solutions with known concentrations of Cr, Ni, Cu and Zn were used, which were added in different types of adsorbent materials (peat, limestone and activated carbon) to different weights, obtaining a result of 24 samples for each metal that were subsequently analyzed by spectrophotometry. Thanks to this, it was possible to describe the individual behavior of each pollutant used in the Langmuir and Freundlich models, finding a great correlation in the latter according to the determined parameters. Once the results were analyzed, it was established that the degree of removal of each contaminating metal was greater than 90 percent; having active carbon and peat as the best bioadsorbent.