Abstract
A lab scale pellet reactor (PR) was designed and fabricated to carry out extensive investigations on the removal efficiency of the hardness of groundwater. The groundwater of 2200 – 2600 mg/L hardness was collected from Abdulla Ibnalhassan wells area located at the west desert of Al-Shinafiyah district (70 km to the southwest of Al-Dewaniyah city, Iraq). Both hydrodynamic parameters of the pellet reactor (porosity and fluidized bed height) and the parameters of calcium carbonate crystallization process (calcium carbonate equilibrium, pellet size, and density) were modeled and compared with the experimental results of the lab scale pellet reactor. The comparison showed that fair agreement between modeled and measured results was observed. The removal efficiency of both calcium and magnesium ions were 62.5-99% and 83-99% respectively. The removal efficiency was found to be strongly dependent on pH and the ratio of NaOH solution flow rate to the groundwater flow rate in the pellet reactor.
