Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2011NJ274B

Scrap Tire and Water Treatment Residuals as Novel "Green" Sorbents from Removal of Common Metals from Polluted Urban Stormwater Runoff

Institute: New Jersey
Year Established: 2011 Start Date: 2011-03-01 End Date: 2012-08-31
Total Federal Funds: $14,966 Total Non-Federal Funds: $29,946

Principal Investigators: Yang Deng, Sudipta Rakshit, Dibyendu Sarkar

Project Summary: Low cost “green” sorbent materials can be used in urban stormwater (USW) best management practices (BMP) to remove common metal pollutants such as Cu, Pb, and Zn. Ground tire rubber (TR) has been reported to immobilize metals such as Cu and Pb. Another low-cost, “green” sorbent, which has proven capacity of removing Cu, Pb, and Zn from water, is Al-based drinking water treatment residuals (Al-WTR). However, there is no reported study on the usage of either TR or Al-WTR for removal of metals from polluted USW runoff. Since TR has the potential to leach Zn, the use of Al-WTR in conjunction with TR is likely to generate a more efficient metal sorbent. The primary objective of the proposed research is to understand the retention/release characteristics of typical USW metals such as Cu, Pb, and Zn on TR and Al-WTR as a function of environmental conditions relevant to USW, such as solid solution ratio, ionic strength, pH, and temperature. Studies on leachability of benzothiazole, an organic pollutant and a typical constituent of tire materials, will also be conducted, and the effectiveness of Al-WTR in retaining benzothiazole will be assessed. If the results obtained from this preliminary study are encouraging, a more comprehensive, greenhouse and field-scale study on the usage of these low-cost sorbents for development of a “green” BMP for USW runoff will be proposed in a subsequent NIWR competition.