Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Sep:391:126502.
doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.126502. Epub 2025 Jul 12.

Pilot scale recovery, and removal of chromium from tannery wastewater by chemical precipitation: Life cycle assessment and cost analysis

Atif Husain  1 , Sohail Ayub  1 , Afzal Husain Khan  2 , Shah Saud Alam  3 , Mohd Abul Hasan  4
Affiliations

Pilot scale recovery, and removal of chromium from tannery wastewater by chemical precipitation: Life cycle assessment and cost analysis

Atif Husain et al. J Environ Manage. 2025 Sep.

Abstract

This study investigated the sustainable approach to removing and recovering chromium by chemical precipitation using sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sulfuric acid (H2SO4). The raw tannery wastewater was studied under varying pH and agitation speed to assess and optimize the process variables using an atomic absorption spectrometer, exhibiting promising removal and recovery rates. The highest chromium removal efficiency of 96.9 % was obtained at a pH of 10.0 with an agitation speed of 500 rpm, while the maximum recovery efficiency of 83.4 % was achieved at pH 2.8 under similar conditions. The life cycle environmental impacts were also assessed for 10 different indicator categories, including particulate matter (PMFP), stratospheric ozone depletion (ODP), human damage ozone formation (HOFP), ecosystem damage ozone formation (EOFP), terrestrial acidification potential (AP), marine eutrophication (ME), global warming potential (GWP), mineral resource scarcity (MRS), water consumption (WC), and fossil resource scarcity (FRS). The scope of the LCA study is to estimate the energy consumption and environmental burden of recovery of chromium from tannery wastewater and evaluate whether the proposed method is environmentally justifiable. Environmental impacts associated with 1 Kg of recovered chromium were utilized as the functional unit for this study to correlate the inputs and outputs of the process using GREET.net v2022 software. Furthermore, the cost analysis showed that chromium recovery could generate an estimated net profit of 588,248 USD/year, confirming the economic viability of the process. This research offers significant insights into improving chromium recovery efficiency while reducing environmental and economic costs, presenting a scalable solution for industrial wastewater treatment.

Keywords: Chromium removal; Precipitation; Sodium hydroxide; Tannery wastewater; Tanning.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

LinkOut - more resources