Nickel removal using integrated chemical treatment and ion exchange treatment

This paper presents the result of nickel removal from electroless plating industry wastewater using integrated chemical precipitation and ion exchange treatment. The performance efficiencies of Chitosan, FeCl
3
, polyacrylamide (PAA) and WPC6001organic commercial coagulant for the removal nickel, Chemical Oxygen Demand(COD), total suspended solid (TSS) and turbidity were investigated using jar test. The supernatant from coagulation process was then treated in a two column ion exchanger using Strong Acid Cation Resin (Purolite D 5041) and Chelating Resin (Purolite D5047). Polyacrylamide gave the best performance with the percentage removal a snickel, COD, TSS and turbidity as 96.6%, 47.2%, 99.6% and 99.6% respectively while chelating resin with percentage nickel of 99.2% and 99.55% in the 1
st
column and 2
nd
column respectively was found to be best resin. The nickel contents in the effluents of the first column and second column ion exchange column were in the range of 0.023
–
0.043 mg/L and 0.013
–
0.032 mg/L respectively. These results meet the Malaysia Environmental Quality Standard A for industrial effluent, which is 0.2 mg/L.