Highly efficient removal of Cu(II), Zn(II), Ni(II) and Fe(II) from electroplating wastewater using sulphide from sulphidogenic bioreactor effluent.

A bench-scale, stirred-tank batch precipitator was used to assess the selective removal of Cu2+, Zn2+, Ni2+ and Fe2+ from acidic electroplating wastewater using sulphide from a sulphidogenic bioreactor effluent. At pH approximately 1.7, >99% of Cu was selectively precipitated, over Zn, Ni and Fe, from the wastewater as pure CuS by recycling H2S from the bioreactor effluent via N2 sparging, resulting in a Cu effluent concentration <0.4 mg/L. The rate of Cu precipitation increased from 1.6 to 6.4 mg Cu/(L x min) when the pH of the bioreactor effluent decreased from 7.5 to 5.5. Experiments focusing on the precipitation of Zn, Ni and Fe from the wastewater devoid of Cu (at pH approximately 1.7), using sulphide-rich bioreactor effluent, achieved approximately 85-97% precipitation efficiency for Zn, approximately 25-92% for Ni, and approximately 2-99% for Fe, depending on the initial sulphide/metal molar ratio. The sulphide/metal ratio of 1.76 was found to be optimal for the precipitation of Zn, Ni and Fe with sulphides and, to a lesser extent, with hydroxides, resulting in residual metal concentrations of 1 mg Zn/L, 3 mg Ni/L, and 0.5 mg Fe/L. These findings suggest the potential of waste biogenic sulphides for the selective recovery of valuable metals from acidic metal-rich industrial wastewaters.