Manganese, the tenth most abundant in the earth’s crust, is commonly present in nature with iron and silica, and it is dissolved into groundwater by various hydro-chemical processes. Appropriate manganese intake is essential for human and animal development and plant growth. However, from a health and sensory point of view, the amount of manganese in drinking water should be limited to a very low value.
The value of manganese intake from drinking water recommended by WHO is 0.4mg/L.
The technique of removing manganese from water is based on the oxidation of soluble manganese forms (Mn2+) to insoluble manganese forms (Mn4+). Various water treatment technologies such as aeration, chlorination, potassium permanganate and ozonization have been proposed. However, these methods are slow in oxidization, require administration of chemical reagents, and are expensive. Therefore, they are complicated to operate in practice and difficult to apply to large-scale water treatment.
Ri Hyang Ran, a researcher at the Faculty of Earth Science and Technology, carried out some experiments to remove manganese from water using brucite marble as filter material and confirmed its applicability.
Magnesium content in the water filtered through the brucite marble filter material layer increased 1.25 times compared to the raw water, and the pH of water increased from 7.4 to over 8. As pH increased, Mn2+ concentration in the filtered water decreased from 0.6mg/L to below 0.05mg/L.
The water treatment method using brucite marble as a filter can effectively remove soluble manganese in water and can be applied to large-scale water treatment at low cost.
For more information, please refer to her paper “Experimental Study on Manganese Removal from Water by Brucite Marble” in “Proceedings of KUTIC-2025”.