Studying the performance of an Activated Carbon Filter using almond shell

Abstract

Using new technologies and sustainable methods to obtain safe and clean water is considered one of the most important aims. In this work, almond shells have been used to prepare an activated carbon (AC) filter. Two types of sand filter media were used to simulate slow and rapid sand filters. Samples of raw water from Tigris River were taken, and the following parameters were studied (pH, turbidity, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), sulphate and heavy metals (Iron(Fe), copper(Cu) and zinc(Zn)). Results showed that replacing sand with AC was better in the removal of Fe and Zn, when a slow sand filter was used the removal was 99% for both of them, while the enhancement in the removal seems to be small when the rapid sand filter was used.