Contamination of water by heavy metals through the discharge of industrial waste water is a worldwide environmental problem. Different methods for water pollution control are being used, however, adsorption has been found to be superior to other techniques in flexibility and simplicity of design, inexpensiveness, ease of operation and insensitivity to toxic pollutants. Several adsorbents can be used to treat polluted waters, but the success of an adsorption process starts with the choice of an adsorbent. In present article we used waste products and natural low cost products (olive waste, maize cobs, bentonitic clay, wheat bran, coal ash and coffee waste) as adsorbents for removal of iron, cadmium and manganese ions. All untreated adsorbents used showed very good results toward removing of Fe2+, Mn2+ and Cd2+ ions, however coal ash was most effective by removing of all ions from 97.5 - 99.6%.

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