The effects of natural zeolite on ions adsorption and reducing solution electrical conductivity Na and K solutions

Abstract

Natural zeolites are crystalline alominosilicate minerals with three dimensions. In general, three important factors, structure, texture, chemical composition as well as economic value of natural and synthetic zeolites have made them as valuable materials. Zeolites as catalysts in oil and petrochemical industries, fire distinguishing industries and agricultural industries are just some of their applications. Zeolites are also valuable as soil fertilizer, soil moisture holder, municipals as well as industrials wastewater treatment, harmful and toxic chemicals eliminator metals and gases adsorptive. Zeolites are very effective minerals to decrease the risk of toxic cations as well as anions. In a series of experiments different mixtures of soil with zeolite were prepared using 0, 0.5, 1, 5, 10 and 100 percent of zeolite by weight. The constant amounts of mixtures were treated with constant volumes of solutions containing NaCl, NaNO3, KCl and KNO3. The electrical conductivity of each solution was 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 dS/m. All samples were replicated two times and each batch of experiment was containing 60 samples with total number of 240 samples for the whole experiment. Mixtures of soil with zeolite were treated with different salt solutions and were shake for two hours prior to analysis. All suspensions were filtered and their electrical conductivity was measured at constant temperature. The results showed that electrical conductivity of filtered solutions was lower in mixtures containing zeolite compared to soil. Also the electrical conductivity of the filtered solutions was considerably lower in K solutions compared to Na. It concluded that zeolite could probably reduce the electrical conductivity of soil solutions by adsorption of ions from the primary solutions and it seems that zeolite would tend to adsorb more K ions compared to Na ions from the solutions resulting lower electrical conductivity of K containing compared to Na containing solutions.