Adsorption combined with superconducting high gradient magnetic separation technique used for removal of arsenic and antimony.

Manganese iron oxide (MnFe2O4), an excellent arsenic(As)/antimony(Sb) removal adsorbent, is greatly restricted for the solid-liquid separation. Through the application of superconducting high gradient magnetic separation (HGMS) technique, we herein constructed a facility for the in situ solid-liquid separation of micro-sized MnFe2O4 adsorbent in As/Sb removal process. To the relative low initial concentration 50.0μgL-1, MnFe2O4 material sorbent can still decrease As or Sb below US EPA's drinking water standard limit. The separation of MnFe2O4 was mainly relied on the flow rate and the amount of steel wools in the HGMS system. At a flow rate 1Lmin-1 and 5% steel wools filling rate, the removal efficacies of As and Sb in natural water with the system were achieved to be 94.6% and 76.8%, respectively. At the meantime, nearly 100% micro-sized MnFe2O4 solid in the continuous field was readily to be separated via HGMS system. In a combination with the experiment results and finite element simulation, the separation was seemed to be independent on the magnetic field intensity, and the maximum separation capacities in various conditions were well predicted using the Thomas model (R2=0.87-0.99).