Pouria Paridash - Department of Metallurgical engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
Seyed Mahdi Ghasemi - Department of Chemical engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
Aliakbar Amooey - Department of Chemical engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Mazandran, Babolsar, Iran
Hooman Bakhshi - Nanotechnology Department, School of New Technologies, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

In tannery factories, chromium sulfate is used for the improvement of leather quality. High chromium concentration in these wastewaters is a critical threat to the environment. In this study, Cr3+ and Cr6+ removal are studied with a novel method to the highest global standards with 95% chromium recovery for tannery industrial reuse. In this study, a wastewater from one of the tannery factories in the east of Iran was used. Average chromium concentration in this wastewater was measured 5000 mg/L. After passing through an activated carbon column and after that an activated alumina column, and finally 99.98% of chromium is removed and concentration reaches to less than 1 mg/L. Also washing of adsorbents with 5% sulfuric acid, chromium sulfate solution for tannery usages would be produced.

Tannery wastewater, Chromium recovery, Photocatalysis, Adsorption