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Actinium is a radioactive chemical element with symbol Ac (not to be confused with the abbreviation for an acetyl group) and atomic number 89, which was discovered in 1899. It was the first non-primordial radioactive element to be isolated. Polonium, radium and radon were observed before actinium, but they were not isolated until 1902. Actinium gave the name to the actinide series, a group of 15 similar elements between actinium and lawrencium in the periodic table. Actinium forms a trivalent cation in water. Actinium salts are generally soluble, although there is not a lot of information available due to its radioactive nature.
A soft, silvery-white radioactive metal, actinium reacts rapidly with oxygen and moisture in air forming a white coating of actinium oxide that prevents further oxidation. As with most lanthanides and many actinides, actinium assumes oxidation state +3 in nearly all its chemical compounds. Actinium is found only in traces in uranium and thorium ores as the isotope 227Ac, which decays with a half-life of 21.772 years, predominantly emitting beta and sometimes alpha particles, and 228Ac, which is beta active with a half-life of 6.15 hours.

Alkalinity is defined as any compound with the ability to neutralize acidity. Although we generally think of alkalinity as being the carbon dioxide, bicarbonate, carbonate species, it also includes ammonia borate and even sulfate.

Aluminium or aluminum (in North American English) is a chemical element in the boron group with symbol Al and atomic number 13. It is a silvery-white, soft, nonmagnetic, ductile metal. Aluminium is the third most abundant element in the Earth’s crust (after oxygen and silicon) and its most abundant metal.
Aluminium makes up about 8% of the crust by mass, though it is less common in the mantle below. Aluminium metal is so chemically reactive that native specimens are rare and limited to extreme reducing environments. Instead, it is found combined in over 270 different minerals. The chief ore of aluminium is bauxite.
Despite its prevalence in the environment, no known form of life uses aluminium salts metabolically, but aluminium is well tolerated by plants and animals. Because of their abundance, the potential for a biological role is of continuing interest and studies continue.Aluminium is remarkable for its low density and its ability to resist corrosion through the phenomenon of passivation. Aluminium is most famously used in aluminum foil and aluminum baking dishes. However, its alloys are vital to the aerospace industry and important in transportation and structures, such as building facades and window frames. Aluminum is a relatively good electrical conductor. The oxides and sulfates are the most useful compounds of aluminium. Aluminum salts such as alum (aluminum sulfate) are widely used as coagulants in the treatment of potable water.

Phosphoric acid is not completely ionized allowing for a few ion exchange reactions to be used. Modest amounts of aluminum can be removed from relatively concentrated solutions and effectively removed using sulfuric acid.

Aluminum in drinking water is often present as a suspended solid rather than as an ion.

Aluminate is a common source of aluminum used as a coagulant in water treatment.

Americium is a man-made element in the actinide series but has properties more similar to the lanthanides than other actinides. It is transmuted from plutonium and uranium in commercial nuclear reactors. Americium 241 is used in smoke detectors and has much longer half life (432 years). Although the +3 valence is most common, Americium also forms +2 and +4 valence depending on matrix effects and redox potential.

At higher concentrations amines are molecular liquids and can be effectively deionized by a combination of hydrogen form cation resins such as CG8-H and CG10-H followed by hydroxide form anion resins (such as SBG1-OH or SBG2-OH). If the amines are anhydrous (without water) they pull water out of the resin. This complicates regenerations because the rewetting process must be done slowly to avoid bead breakage.

Behavior of amines is similar to that of ammonia. At low concentrations amines are ionized as monovalent cations and are removed by hydrogen form cation exchange resins such as CG8-H and CG10-H. Due to the high flow rates and the nature of amines not being fully ionized, the working zone of an ion exchange bed is rather deep and full utilization of the resins capacity is not always obtained.

Behavior of amines is similar to that of ammonia. At low concentrations amines are ionized as monovalent cations and are removed by cation exchange resins such as CG8 and CG10.

Ammonia gas diffuses into the resin beads and then exchanges as ammonium ion. Hydrogen form cation resins have very high capacity for ammonia when regenerated with acid.

Ammonium ion forms when pH is less than 9 (preferably less than 8). Ammonium is a monovalent cation. Cation resins such as CG8 and CG10 have modest selectivity for ammonium ion compared to sodium but poor selectivity compared to hardness ions such as calcium and magnesium. SIR-600 has very high selectivity for ammonium but fairly low capacity and requires a rather large salt dose (typically at least 30 lbs NaCl per cu ft).

Antimony is a chemical element with symbol Sb (from Latin: stibium) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient times and were powdered for use as medicine and cosmetics, often known by the Arabic name, kohl. Metallic antimony was also known, but it was erroneously identified as lead upon its discovery. In the West, it was first isolated by Vannoccio Biringuccio and described in 1540.
For some time, China has been the largest producer of antimony and its compounds, with most production coming from the Xikuangshan Mine in Hunan. The industrial methods for refining antimony are roasting and reduction with carbon or direct reduction of stibnite with iron.
Pure antimony is a soft brittle metal. Antimony forms similar compounds to its sister element arsenic and is most commonly found in its +3 oxidation state. The largest applications for metallic antimony is an alloy with lead and tin and the lead antimony plates in lead–acid batteries. Alloys of lead and tin with antimony have improved properties for solders, bullets and plain bearings.It is also used as a component in fire retardants and in certain organic chemical synthesis.

The iron based strong base anion hybrids are effective to remove antimony from borated waters found in nuclear power plants.

Argon is a chemical element with symbol Ar and atomic number 18. Argon is the third most abundant gas in the Earth’s atmosphere, more than twice as abundant as water vapor, 23 times as abundant as carbon dioxide, and more than 500 times as abundant as neon. Argon is also the most abundant noble gas in Earth’s crust.
Nearly all of the argon in Earth’s atmosphere is radiogenic argon-40, derived from the decay of potassium-40 in the Earth’s crust. In the universe, argon-36 is by far the most common argon isotope, being the preferred argon isotope produced by stellar nucleosynthesis in supernovas.
The name “argon” is derived from the Greek word ἀργόν, neuter singular form of ἀργός meaning “lazy” or “inactive”, as a reference to the fact that the element undergoes almost no chemical reactions.
It is used in welding and other applications that require an inert gas. Argon has limited solubility in water and can be removed by a variety of degasification techniques.

Arsenic is a chemical element with symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, but only the gray form is important to industry.
The primary use of metallic arsenic is in alloys of lead (for example, in car batteries and ammunition). Arsenic is a common n-type dopant in semiconductor electronic devices, and the optoelectronic compound gallium arsenide is the second most commonly used semiconductor after doped silicon. Arsenic and its compounds, especially the trioxide, are used in the production of pesticides, treated wood products, herbicides, and insecticides. These applications are declining, however
A few species of bacteria are able to use arsenic compounds as respiratory metabolites. Trace quantities of arsenic are an essential dietary element in rats, hamsters, goats, chickens, and presumably many other species, including humans.
Arsenic is notoriously poisonous to multicellular life. Arsenic trioxide compounds are widely used as pesticides, herbicides and insecticides. As a result, arsenic contamination of groundwater supplies is a problem that affects millions of people around the world.

Arsenate is a divalent anion with affinity for anion resins similar to but slightly lower than that of sulfate Arsenate can be exchanged by strong base anion exchange resins and then adsorbed into the iron hybrid adsorbent of ASM-10-HP.

Except for Gallium arsenide (used as a semiconductor), other arsenide compounds are generally only of academic interest. Gallium arsenide is an important semiconductor because it has much lower electrical resistance than silicon and therefore lower power use and less heat generation.

In most cases arsenite should be oxidized to arsenate so that it is converted to a form more easily removed. Oxidation can be accomplished with chlorine or with oxygen catalyzed by various redox medias.

Astatine is a radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol At and atomic number 85, and is the rarest naturally occurring element on the Earth’s crust. It occurs on Earth as the decay product of various heavier elements. All its isotopes are short-lived; the most stable is astatine-210, with a half-life of 8.1 hours. Elemental astatine has never been viewed because any macroscopic sample would be immediately vaporized by its radioactive heating. It has yet to be determined if this obstacle could be overcome with sufficient cooling.
The bulk properties of astatine are not known with any certainty. Many of these have been estimated based on its periodic table position as a heavier analog of iodine, and a member of the halogens – the group of elements including fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine. It is likely to have a dark or lustrous appearance and may be a semiconductor or possibly a metal; it probably has a higher melting point than that of iodine. Chemically, several anionic species of astatine are known and most of its compounds resemble those of iodine. It also shows some metallic behavior, including being able to form a stable monatomic cation in aqueous solution (unlike the lighter halogens). Astatine has metallic characteristics and can assume many different valances from -1, to +1, to +7 (all odd number valences). Astatine is a beta emitter and decays into Polonium 210.

Barium is a chemical element with symbol Ba and atomic number 56. It is the fifth element in Group 2, a soft silvery metallic alkaline earth metal. Because of its high chemical reactivity, barium is never found in nature as a free element. Its hydroxide, known in pre-modern history as baryta, does not occur as a mineral, but can be prepared by heating barium carbonate.
The most common naturally occurring minerals of barium are barite (barium sulfate, BaSO4) and witherite (barium carbonate, BaCO3), both insoluble in water. The barium name originates from the alchemical derivative “baryta”, from Greek βαρύς (barys), meaning “heavy.” Baric is the adjective form of barium. Barium was identified as a new element in 1774, but not reduced to a metal until 1808 with the advent of electrolysis.
Barium has few commercial uses. Barium salts are used in drilling mud due to high specific gravity of barium solutions, and as pure barium sulfate to enhance X-ray imaging. Barium is also used in making fireworks and occasionally as a getter for high vacuum applications.

Barium has high affinity for cation resins and can be readily removed along with other hardness ions such as calcium and magnesium. Care must be taken during regeneration to limit barium sulfate precipitation or leakage of suspended barium sulfate will occur. Regeneration of weak acid cation resin with hydrochloric acid followed by neutralization with caustic is one way to avoid the precipitation issues.

Berkelium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with symbol Bk and atomic number 97. It is a member of the actinide and transuranium element series. It is named after the city of Berkeley, California, the location of the University of California Radiation Laboratory where it was discovered in December 1949. This was the fifth transuranium element discovered after neptunium, plutonium, curium and americium.
The major isotope of berkelium, 249Bk, is synthesized in minute quantities in dedicated high-flux nuclear reactors, mainly at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, USA, and at the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors in Dimitrovgrad, Russia. The production of the second-most important isotope 247Bk involves the irradiation of the rare isotope 244Cm with high-energy alpha particles. It has a half life of 330 days and is an alpha emitter. The +3 valence is most likely although Berkelium also forms +2 and +4 valences.
Just over one gram of berkelium has been produced in the United States since 1967. There is no practical application of berkelium outside of scientific research which is mostly directed at the synthesis of heavier transuranic elements and transactinides.

Beryllium is a chemical element with symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is a relatively rare element in the universe, usually occurring as a product of the spallation of larger atomic nuclei that have collided with cosmic rays. Within the cores of stars beryllium is depleted as it is fused and creates larger elements.
It is a divalent element which occurs naturally only in combination with other elements in minerals. Notable gemstones which contain beryllium include beryl (aquamarine, emerald) and chrysoberyl. As a free element it is a steel-gray, strong, lightweight and brittle alkaline earth metal.
Beryllium improves many physical properties when added as an alloying element to aluminium, copper (notably the alloy beryllium copper), iron and nickel. Beryllium does not form oxides until it reaches very high temperatures. Tools made of beryllium copper alloys are strong and hard and do not create sparks when they strike a steel surface. In structural applications, the combination of high flexural rigidity, thermal stability, thermal conductivity and low density (1.85 times that of water) make beryllium metal a desirable aerospace material because it is light weight, high strength, and provides superior structural stability. These traits make it useful in aircraft components, missiles, spacecraft, and satellites.
Beryllium is transparent to ionizing radiation and is useful in certain types of reactor cores and for X-ray generators. Beryllium dust is quite corrosive and is considered toxic.

Bicarbonate alkalinity can be converted to carbon dioxide (gas dissolved in water) by exchanging cations present in the water for hydrogen ion. A variety of hydrogen cation resins can be used for the exchange. The conversion is typically followed by degasification to removed the carbon dioxide formed.

Bicarbonate alkalinity can be removed by various strong base anion resins in the hydroxide form (such as SBG1P-OH and SDBG2-OH), when coupled with hydrogen form cation resins (such as CG8-H or CG10-H). Bicarbonate can also be removed by deionizing mixed bed resins such as MBD-15 and MBD-10.

Bicarbonate alkalinity can be removed by a variety of strong base an ion resin and ionic forms including SBG2 and SBG1 in the chloride or in the hydroxide form.

Bismuth is a chemical element with the symbol Bi and the atomic number 83. Bismuth is a heavy metal that has similar properties to antimony and arsenic. Elemental bismuth may occur naturally, although its sulfide and oxide form important commercial ores. The free element is 86% as dense as lead. It is a brittle metal with a silvery white color when freshly produced but is often seen in air with a pink tinge owing to surface oxidation. Bismuth is the most naturally diamagnetic element, and has one of the lowest values of thermal conductivity among metals.
Bismuth metal has been known since ancient times, although it was often confused with lead and tin, which share some physical properties. The etymology is uncertain, but possibly comes from Arabic bi ismid, meaning having the properties of antimony or the German words weiße Masse or Wismuth (“white mass”), translated in the mid-sixteenth century to New Latin bisemutum.
It has low toxicity and is used in cosmetics, and in diarrhea medications. It is a semiconductor, which, when alloyed with antimony or selenium, is an efficient thermoelectric material for refrigeration or portable power generation. Bismuth is relatively insoluble in water but forms a trivalent cation in acidic solutions and a complex anion in very concentrated acids.

Bohrium is a chemical element with symbol Bh and atomic number 107. It is named after Danish physicist Niels Bohr. It is a man made transuranic element (an element that can be created in a laboratory but is not found in nature) and radioactive; the most stable known isotope, 270Bh, has a half-life of approximately 61 seconds.
In the periodic table of the elements, it is a d-block transactinide element. It is a member of the 7th period and belongs to the group 7 elements as the fifth member of the 6d series of transition metals. Chemistry experiments have confirmed that bohrium behaves as the heavier homologue to rhenium in group 7. The chemical properties of bohrium are characterized only partly, but they compare well with the chemistry of the other group 7 elements.
Its chemical properties are expected to be similar to manganese and technetium but since only a few atoms have ever been made its chemical properties have never been determined. Bohrium decays by alpha emission.

Boron is a chemical element with symbol B and atomic number 5. Produced entirely by cosmic ray spallation and supernovae and not by stellar nucleosynthesis, it is a low-abundance element in the Solar system and in the Earth’s crust.
Boron is concentrated on Earth by the water-solubility of its more common naturally occurring compounds, the borate minerals. These are mined industrially as evaporites, such as borax and kernite. The largest known boron deposits are in Turkey, the largest producer of boron minerals.
Elemental boron is a metalloid that is found in small amounts in meteoroids but chemically uncombined boron is not otherwise found naturally on Earth. Industrially, very pure boron is produced with difficulty because of refractory contamination by carbon or other elements. Several allotropes of boron exist: amorphous boron is a brown powder; crystalline boron is silvery to black, extremely hard (about 9.5 on the Mohs scale), and a poor electrical conductor at room temperature. The primary use of elemental boron is as boron filaments with applications similar to carbon fibers in some high-strength materials. Almost all other uses are as boron compounds such as borosilicate glass and as an additive to fiberglass insulation. Boron is also used as a doping agent in semiconductor manufacturing and as a neutron moderator in light water reactors.

Boron (as borate) can be removed from brines of any concentration provided the pH is greater than 3. Flow rates must be kept low.

Bromine is a chemical element with symbol Br and atomic number 35. It is the third-lightest halogen, and is a fuming red-brown liquid at room temperature that evaporates readily to form a similarly coloured gas. Its properties are thus intermediate between those of chlorine and iodine. Isolated independently by two chemists, Carl Jacob Löwig (in 1825) and Antoine Jérôme Balard (in 1826), its name was derived from the Ancient Greek βρῶμος “stench”, referencing its sharp and disagreeable smell.
Elemental bromine is very reactive and thus does not occur free in nature, but in colourless soluble crystalline mineral halide salts, analogous to table salt. While it is rather rare in the Earth’s crust, the high solubility of the bromide ion (Br−) has caused its accumulation in the oceans. Commercially the element is easily extracted from brine pools, mostly in the United States, Israel and China. The mass of bromine in the oceans is about one three-hundredth of that of chlorine.
Bromine is sparingly soluble in water. Organo bromine compounds are used as biocides, insecticides, and as a component of fire retardants.

Anion resin affinity for bromate increases with increasing size of the amine, therefore resins such as SIR-100 and SIR-110-HP have higher capacity for bromates than type I resins such as SBG1 or type II resins such as SBG2.

Bromide ions are quite soluble. Neutral bromide can be removed with strong base anion resins, acidic bromide solutions can also be removed by weakly basic anion resins such as WBMP.

Cadmium can be removed from plating rinse waters by deionization or by selective ion removal resins such as SIR-300 and WACMP-Na. Ideal pH is slightly acidic.

Cadmium is a chemical element with symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, bluish-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. Like zinc, it demonstrates oxidation state +2 in most of its compounds, and like mercury, it has a lower melting point than other transition metals. Cadmium and its congeners are not always considered transition metals, in that they do not have partly filled d or f electron shells in the elemental or common oxidation states. The average concentration of cadmium in Earth’s crust is between 0.1 and 0.5 parts per million (ppm). It was discovered in 1817 simultaneously by Stromeyer and Hermann, both in Germany, as an impurity in zinc carbonate.
Cadmium occurs as a minor component in most zinc ores and is a byproduct of zinc production. Cadmium was used for a long time as a corrosion-resistant plating on steel, and cadmium compounds are used as red, orange and yellow pigments, to colour glass, and to stabilize plastic. However, its use has fallen into disfavor due to its toxicity. Cadmium forms a divalent cation in water. Cadmium salts are mostly soluble.

At higher TDS, generic softening resins can still be used, albeit with lower capacity and higher leakage. With increasingly brackish feed it becomes necessary to use a worker and polisher arrangement or use a WAC resins such as WACMP instead of a SAC resin such as CG8.

SAC type resins are often effective to remove calcium from oil field produced waters. The customary arrangement is with a worker and polisher such that the brine is throughfared through the polisher first and then back through the worker.

The imminodiacetic chelating resin (SIR-300) and the amino phosphonic chelating resin (SIR-500) can be used to remove calcium from brine at any concentration. The amino phosphonic chelating resin is more commonly used for this purpose.

Generic strong acid cation resins are commonly used to remove hardness ions including calcium from potable water. Soft water protects hot water heaters from scale and helps soaps to function without leaving a soap scum. Calcium and other hardness ions are exchanged for sodium (or in some cases potassium). The resins can be used over and over following regeneration with salt brine.