Experimental Scrutinization on Treatment of Organic and Inorganic Effluents using Adsorption Process

Abstract

Wastewater treatment has become one of the most significant sources for irrigation and other activities in arid and semi-arid countries. Many conventional methods deal with different organic and inorganic compounds of wastewater. One of the most common is using activated carbon through an adsorption process to treat wastewater. Adsorption is used when the contaminants present in wastewater are removed using activated carbon as an adsorbent. This paper examines the results of experiments on removing organic and inorganic compounds using activated carbon prepared from waste tyres, banana trunks, tea leaves and date seeds. Moreover, studies state that activated carbon has a strong affinity for binding organic substances, even at low concentrations. Thus, it has become the premier method for treating organic-laden wastewater. This paper reveals a method to deal with contaminants in wastewater which is very effective. Various experimental tests were carried out to determine the adsorption capacity of the different activated carbon, expressed as percentage removal of Chemical Oxygen Demand, Total Suspended Solid, and Total Dissolved Solid, and the effects of pH, contact time and dosage. The surface area of the adsorbent, pore volume and an isothermal graph of the adsorbent were determined using BET (Brunauer-Emmett-Teller) Surface Area. Waste tyres (WT), date seeds (DS), tea leaves (TL) and banana trunk (BT) have 1260, 1144.52, 163.8 and 115.4 m2/g surface area with 1.62, 0.656, 0.066088 and 0.4566 cm3 of total pore volume respectively indicating the use of waste tyres as an adsorbent. The moisture and ash content percentages were also determined and it was found that the above adsorbents have 2.6%, 6.4%, 7.4% and 9% moisture content, with 3.6%, 6.2%, 6.9% and 12% ash content respectively.