Treatment of heavy metals and radionuclides in groundwater and wastewater by magnetic separation

Removal of trace quantities of heavy metal or radionuclide contamination from solutions at high flow rate presents a considerable technical challenge. Low flow methods of treatment such as particle gravity settling require expensive large volume equipment, whereas traditional methods of filtration demand significant energy costs. Magnetic filtration can be used to provide a low cost method of solid-liquid separation at high flow rate, provided contaminants can be selectively bound to a magnetic solid particle. This paper describes recent progress with this technique including performance tests of composite materials produced to selectively remove specific contaminants such as cesium, uranium, lead, cadmium, and mercury from solution