Abstract
The disposal of palm oil mill effluent (POME) without proper treatment before being discharged into natural water sources has become undesirable because of high concentration of suspended solid (SS), oil and grease (O&G), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD). This study investigated the feasibility of removing colour, total suspended solid (TSS) and COD using acid-washed coconut shell based activated carbon (CSAC) through the evaluation of the adsorption uptake as well as the adsorption kinetics and mechanism. The percentage removal of colour, TSS and COD from POME onto CSAC were 61%, 39%, 66%, respectively achieved within 48 hours of contact time. The kinetic models studied were pseudo-first-order (PFO), pseudo-second-order (PSO), and Elovich models. The intra-particle diffusion (IPD) model was studied to interpret the adsorption diffusion mechanism. The adsorption of colour, TSS and COD onto CSAC were best interpreted by the PSO model, and well fitted by the Elovich model. The IPD and Boyd plots indicated that IPD and film diffusion controlled the adsorption of colour, TSS and COD onto the CSAC.
Highlights
Palm oil industry is a main economic contributor in Malaysia
The pseudo-first-order (PFO) kinetic model is defined according to Eq (3) [11], which can be shown as a linear expression by Eq (4) through integration over boundary conditions such as the colour, total suspended solid (TSS) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) adsorbed quantity q = 0 at t = 0 and q = qe at t = t
The kinetics of colour, TSS and COD adsorption onto coconut shell based activated carbon (CSAC) were better interpreted by the PSO and Elovich models due to the comparable R2 values and SSE values obtained for both models
Summary
Palm oil industry is a main economic contributor in Malaysia. Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is the largest waste contributor in the palm oil mills. In Malaysia, approximately 30 million tonnes of POME were released by 381 palm oil production mills in 2004 [1]. A past study reported that the removal efficiency of suspended solids and turbidity was 89.1% and 91.4%, which was respectively achieved by utilizing powdered activated carbon (PAC) obtained from EFB, with the following specific conditions: 3.5 g PAC/100 mL biotreated POME, contact time of 45 minutes and mixing speed of 150 rpm [8]. A study on colour adsorption from biologically treated POME by utilizing AC derived from palm kernel shell which was produced by following chemical and microwave method (PKSCM) reported colour removal of 100% at the optimum condition of 5 g AC/100 mL POME, pH 2, and equilibrium time of 12. The aim of this study is to investigate the feasibility of acid-washed CSAC to remove colour, TSS and COD from POME through evaluation of the adsorption uptake, kinetics and mechanism
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