ENVE 303

2020-2021 Fall

Tutorial 8

1. The exchange capacity of a strong cation exchange resin is reported as 4.8 meq/g. Determine the
amount of resin needed to treat water with a flowrate of 5 m3/day . Water supply contains 100
mg/L MgCl2 and 150 mg/L CaCl2. Assume a regeneration time of 1 hr per 48 hours of treatment.

2. A quantity of sodium-form ion-exchange resin (5 g) is added to a water containing 2 meq of

potassium chloride and 0.5 meq of sodium chloride. Calculate the residual concentration of
potassium if the exchange capacity of the resin is 4.0 meq/g of dry weight and the selectivity
coefficient is equal to 1.46, when solid and liquid phase concentrations are expressed in meq/g
and meq/L, respectively.

3. The analysis of a raw water is given in the table below. The water has a pH of 7.15.

Cations Concentration (mg/L) Anions Concentration (mg/L)

Ca+2 148.8 Cl- 27
Mg+2 24.8 SO4-2 159
Na+ 15 HCO3- 372
K+ 3.3 NO3- 2.2

You are asked to remove hardness of this water by using ion exchangers.

a) Which type of ion exchanger can be used?

b) What fraction of the total flow rate should pass through the ion exchanger in order that the hardness
can be lowered to 150 mg/L as CaCO3? Assume total flow rate as 1500 L/h.

Answers

1)4,9 kg/d

2)0.162 meq

3) 0.68