Abstract

Many ceramic industries will discard their defective and unsold fired products as waste material directly into
the landfill site, which causes environmental problems. In this study an attempt is made to develop ion exchange
media using waste ceramic materials and its application to remove pollutants from ground water. The waste
ceramic is converted into zeolite by alkali fusion method and the developed zeolite was impregnated with silver
nitrate of 0.5 mM. The developed silver impregnated zeolite had the properties such as high cation exchange
capacity, large surface area, high porosity and antimicrobial properties. The batch studies were conducted using
developed silver impregnated zeolite as ion exchange media for removal of hardness, and bacterial contamination
from ground water. The batch studies conducted resulted in removal of hardness and bacterial contamination with
72% and 96% removal efficiency.