Investigation of defluoridation of drinking water by using titanium dioxide loaded montmorillonite: a case study of Tanzania

Titanium dioxide loaded Montmorillonite was investigated as a media for fluoride removal from drinking water. The objective was to investigate the loading required for the defluoridation process of drinking water. Media preparation involved mixing Titanium dioxide with different Montmorillonite masses while keeping the mass of Titanium dioxide constant at 5g and varying the mass of Montmorillonite, and then the resulting mixture was dried in an oven at 300'C so as to obtain the media which was used to remove fluoride at different initial concentrations. Batch and column experiment studies were investigated in the laboratory and the results showed that 50% Titanium dioxide loaded Montmorillonite pedomied better the removal process by removal efT:iciencies of 55.8% and 86.76% for the initia] concentrations of 10mg/I and 4mg4 respectively with absorption capaci.ty of 4. 105mg/g for the adsorption equilibrium time of 5hours. At initial concentration of 1Omg/l, pH of 3 and 4 gave the higher effeciencies of 57.9% 57.05% meaning that optimum pH range occurs in acidic condition. Tile experimental results shows that fluoride adsorption data of 50% Titanium dioxide loading fitted both Langmuir and Freundlich model of adsorption isotherms with R squared values of 0.9697 and 0.9472 spectively.