All over the world the presence of heavy metals in water supply sources has been raising great concern in terms of public health since many epidemiologic studies confirm the potential carcinogenic effect of these pollutants at concentrations above acceptable standards. Because copper removal is the most frequent option to achieve a safe drinking water, the development of more efficient and sustainable water treatment
technologies is extremely relevant.
Reactive filtration using natural sorbent materials constitutes a promising and suitable process for drinking
water treatment as a sustainable alternative to the conventional sand porous media, due to the their additional sorptive. Additionally, the use of natural materials abundant in the region as a by-product from regional industrial activity enhances the sustainability of these emerging treatment solutions.
This work presents results and a few conclusions basedon a laboratorial study performed to evaluate the
efficiency of copper removal from potable water using a pin bark porous media under different experimental
conditions for relevant hydraulic and physic-chemical parameters. Langmuir and linearisotherms were used to describe the sorption equilibrium data. The obtained lab-scale results allowed to establish sorption kinetics and showed removal efficiencies higher than 90%.