What Are the Treatments for Antimony in Water?

Antimony is a black mineral. It is widely distributed in nature and is frequently associated with the ores of copper, silver, lead and iron. Antimony contamination in drinking water supplies often results from the leaching of antimony by the natural resources and industrial waste. Antimony is a common superfluous product produced during coal and petroleum manufacturing processes. Another major source of antimony is automobile gas emissions and indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels. In the soil, antimony is combined with the particles that contain iron, manganese and aluminum. From soil, antimony passes into water resources like groundwater, lakes and rivers.

Technological Processes

• In water treatment, heavy metals such as antimony are disposed of through a variety of scientific processes, such as electrochemical process, ion exchange (a process in which ions are exchanged between a solution and an insoluble solid), adsorption, precipitation, membrane and biological degradation.

  Little information is available regarding its behavior when antimony penetrates the soil. Studies show that antimony is capable of moving through the soil, and it also exhibits a great affinity to soil. In water, antimony is strongly bound to sediments that settle at the bottom of the water. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will take necessary initiatives (i.e., water samples collection and water treatment methods such as coagulation, filtration and reverse osmosis) in case the contents of antimony are no longer innocuous to human health.

Conventional Technological Processes

• Conventional technological processes (such as water softening, elimination of manganese and iron from water, and coagulation) have been proven through years of testing to be most effective for the removal of dissolved antimony in drinking water. However, their efficacies are regulated by the PH value of the water; for example, coagulation method works best when the PH value of water lies between 7.4 and 6.8.

Application of Chemical Reagents

• A group of chemicals was proposed by the scientists at the Research Institute of Water Management in Slovakia to test the occurrence of antimony in the groundwater system in some selected locations around the country. The technologic tests used the chemicals ferric sulphate and manganous chloride in combination with potassium permanganate. The test results indicated that ferric sulphate can squeeze the contents of antimony to a level that can pose no threat to human health. A drawback of this method is the requirement of using a high dose of coagulant.