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Reduction and Immobilization of Chromate Using Nanometric Pyrite

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Abstract

Two very fine pyrites were prepared using a top-down and a bottom-up method. A natural pyrite was extensively ball-milled and then sieved to obtain the fraction less than 25 µm (surface area 17 m2/g), while sub-micrometer pyrite (FeS2) rods with a surface area of 77 m2/g were prepared by the hydrothermal reaction of ferrous sulfate with sodium sulfite. The ground natural pyrite was found to fairly rapidly reduce chromium(VI) in a 100 ppm solution to chromium(III), but it only immobilized 65.6% of the chromium(III) product so it failed to lower the total chromium below the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for drinking water. However, the synthetic sub-micrometer pyrite completely reduced the chromium(VI) to chromium(III) within one minute and to reduce the total chromium concentration below the detection limit of 0.5 ppb within 3 min. The reactivity of FeS2 toward chromium(VI) does not correlate well with surface area due to the complex series of reaction that occur in both the redox and metal immobilization processes. Nevertheless, size reduction makes it progressively possible to completely remove chromium from chromate-containing solutions.

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Acknowledgments

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation REU program under Grant No. CHE-1559874.

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  1. Department of Chemistry, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, 74078, USA

    Travis Reed & Allen W. Apblett

  2. Department of Chemistry, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, 70118, USA

    Amelia Bergeson

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Bergeson, A., Reed, T. & Apblett, A.W. Reduction and Immobilization of Chromate Using Nanometric Pyrite. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 29, 5557–5563 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-020-04801-1

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