Sediment washing by EDTA and its reclamation by sodium polyamidoamine-multi dithiocarbamate

Sodium polyamidoamine-multi dithiocarbamate (PAMAM-DTC) is a kind of heavy metals capturing agent, containing functional groups of dithiocarbamate that could strongly chelate heavy metals. In this paper, it was applied to precipitate heavy metal ions from meal-EDTA and reclaim EDTA during sediment washing process. The extracting performance of fresh EDTA was studied as a function of EDTA concentration, liquid/sediment (L/S), pH, and extraction time. Then the EDTA effluents were treated with PAMAM-DTC, Na2S and sodium diethyldithiocarbamate (DDTC) to compare their effectiveness on capturing metals from metal-EDTA complexes. Four divalent heavy metals were investigated (Pb, Cd, Cu, Zn). PAMAM-DTC shows much better performance. Pb, Cd and Cu could almost be precipitated completely by PAMAM-DTC under the dosage of 350 mg L^-1, while Zn could be only partly precipitated which may due to its failure in competition with the other three metal ions on chelation with PAMAM-DTC. The reclaimed EDTA was reused in three cycles of sediment washing, and the amount of heavy metals extracted just slightly decreased in each cycle.