The Removal of Cu (II) from Aqueous Solution using Sodium Borohydride as a Reducing Agent

The removal and recovery of metals from wastewater has been a subject of significant importance due the negative impact these toxic metals have on human health and the environment as a result of water and soil pollution. Increased use of the metals and chemicals in the process industries has resulted in generation of large quantity of effluents that contains high level of toxic metals and other pollutants. The objective of this work was to recover of Cu in its elemental form as metallic powder from aqueous solution using NaBH₄ as a reducing agent. Reductive precipitation was achieved in a batch reactor at 65°C using Cu powder as a seeding material. This study also investigated the effect of concentration of sodium borohydride (NaBH₄) as a reducing agent. The amount of NaBH₄ was varied based on mole ratios which are 1:1, 1:0.25 and 1:0.1 to recover Cu from synthetic wastewater. The results obtained showed that sodium borohydride is an effective reducing agent to recover Cu from wastewater. The optimum concentration of NaBH₄ that gives the best results the 1:1 molar ratio with over 99% Cu removal.