© by PSP Volume 23 – No 12a. 2014 Fresenius Environmental Bulletin 3222 INVESTIGATION OF ADSORPTION PARAMETER EFFECTS ON THE REMOVAL OF CYANIDE IN WATER USING CLINOPTILOLITE Ayla Bilgin 1, *, Erdoğan Hasdemir 2 and Atilla Murathan 3 1 Artvin Coruh University, Engineering Faculty, Department of Environmental Engineering, Artvin, Turkey 2 Gazi University, Faculty of Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Ankara, Turkey 3 Gazi University, Engineering Faculty, Department of Chemical Engineering, Ankara, Turkey Presented at the 17 th International Symposium on Environmental Pollution and its Impact on Life in the Mediterranean Region (MESAEP), September 28 - October 01, 2013, Istanbul, Turkey ABSTRACT Natural zeolite clinoptilolite is mined commercially in many areas of Turkey. The current study investigated the removal performance of clinoptilolite from the Manisa- Gördes area on cyanide, which is present in water. Clinop- tilolite was broken into pieces, and separated into two par- ticle sizes, -0.40/+0.32 mm and -0.71/+0.40 mm, and the effects of three different initial cyanide concentrations and three different flow rates on cyanide removal capacity were tested. According to batch experimental results, approxi- mately 60% cyanide was removed from the water. KEYWORDS: Clinoptilolite, cyanide, removal, batch, and dynam- ic system 1. INTRODUCTION The applications of natural clinoptilolite include pol- lution control, agriculture, aquaculture, mining, and met- allurgy [1]. Clinoptilolite makes use of one or more physi- cal and chemical properties: ion-exchange, adsorption and related molecular sieve properties, and composition. In practice, however, the ion-exchange depends on, notably, the nature of the cations species (size, charge, etc...), the temperature, the concentration of the cation species in solution, contact time, flow rate of solution, and the struc- tural characteristics of clinoptilolite (rate of Si:Al). Its cation selectivity has been reported as: Cs + >Rb + >NH + 4 > Ba 2+ >Sr 2+ >Na + >Ca 2+ >Fe 2+ >Al 3+ >Mg 2+ >Li + [2] and Pb 2 > NH + 4 > Cu 2+ ,Cd 2+ > Zn 2+ ,Co 2+ >Ni 2+ >Hg 2+ [3]. Clinoptilolite has been applied to gas cleaning [4], wastewater cleaning [5], animal health [6], gas separation [7,8], deodorization [4], cleaning of radioactivity wastes [9], cation exchange [11-16], selectivity of some metal ions and heavy metals [17-22], and ammonia adsorption, * Corresponding author in particular [4,10]. In addition to adsorption being an efficient method of removing polluters from water, its being an environment-free, cheap and easily provided method certifies its economy [34-37]. All these methods have some disadvantages such as incomplete removal of ioniza- tion, low level of efficiency in annihilating hyper-pollution, high energy consumption, and recleansing of toxic mud and waste water. Adsorption method is, however, one of the mostly-preferred methods as it is cheap and abundant, quick, having recurrence and is easily applicable [34]. The availability and low cost of natural zeolites has stimulated further research for new applications. A new field is the anion adsorption. A few papers have been published on zeolite modification by the adsorption of quaternary ammonium salts-surfactants [23-25]. Another more common method of natural zeolite modification is their transformation into the H + -form [26, 27]. This modi- fication method and other techniques are widely used for various purposes [28-33]. Natural zeolites do not use for anions without previous modification and especially cya- nide ion. The removal of cyanide from groundwater and contaminated water has become a very important envi- ronmental issue since cyanide compounds are known to be toxic to man and other organisms. The current study aims to reveal the cyanide removal process from synthetic solutions in natural clinoptilolite mineral without pre-treatment, and determines their max- imum capacity. The influence of the particle size, the concentration of cyanide solutions and flow rates are also discussed. 2. MATERIALS AND METHODS 2.1 Materials Natural clinoptilolite was received from the Manisa- Gördes area in Turkey and it was ground in a vibrating ball mill to obtain smaller particles. Different particle sizes were separated by sieving and the -0.40/+0.32 mm and -0.71/+0.40 mm particle size was selected for the experiments. Table 1 shows the composition of clinoptilo-