Abstract:
As reported Sri Lanka it has a high fluoride contaminated ground water which was suspected as a cause for
chronic kidney failure and there is an urgent need to treat fluoride contaminated drinking water to make it safe for
human consumption by a low cost and convenient method. In this study potential of using Sri Lankan Apatite (SAp) as
a defloration agent was studied and results were compared with other apatite materials. Adsorption experiments were
performed on SAp, Sulphuric treated SAp (SSAp), Chicken bone char (CBC) and pre Hydroxyl Apatite (HAp). Since
the raw SAp had no adsorbing capacity of fluoride, it was treated with sulfuric acid to produce HAp, however, sulphuric
acid treatment for SAp did not yielded enough amount of hydroxy apatite as a fluoride adsorbent. Accordingly, higher
leaching of fluoride into the solution was confirmed by the SSAp than that by the SAp. The fluoride removal capacities
were in the order: HAp > CBC > SAp>SSA. The adsorption of fluoride by HAp and CBC was not well expressed by
Langmuir isotherm but by Freundlich isotherm. It showed that HAp and CBC was a promising material for fluoride
removal, therefore SAp should be further treated to extract phosphates to produce synthetic hydroxyapatite.
