Natural Egyptian zeolite ore as a novel layered adsorbent for petroleum wastewater treatment

It is critical to synthesize adsorbents that are highly effective, affordable, highly selective, and excellently recyclable to remove refinery wastewater contaminants. Natural zeolites hold great promise for purifying water that contains heavy metals and organic pollutants, which is a typical representative of refinery wastewater effluents. In this work, a natural Egyptian zeolite ore was investigated as an adsorbent for refinery wastewater treatment applications. XRD, XRF, SEM, EDX, FTIR, XRF and BET analytical characterization techniques were used to characterize the zeolite ore. Batch adsorption tests were then conducted to investigate the removal efficiency of this zeolite for benzene (Bz) and strontium (Sr), two representative organic pollutants and heavy metals, respectively. This zeolite ore showed maximum adsorption capacities of 492.5 mg/g and 1700 mg/g for Sr and Bz, respectively. The Baudu isotherm model was found to be the best fit model in the case of Sr, whereas the Bz Langmuir–Freundlich and Sips models resulted in the highest R 2 value. Very fast kinetics were observed, and the equilibrium times were estimated to be 10 and 20 min for Sr and Bz, respectively. The current investigation showed that this layered Egyptian zeolite ore can be very promising for refinery wastewater treatment applications. An adsorbent is used to remove pollutants from refinery wastewater.