Use of Industrial Coal Waste Materials as Adsorbents for Textile Effluent Remediation

Mohamed H Mohamed,Michael K Danquah,Lee D Wilson,Marissa Pirlot

doi:10.4236/msce.2017.58002

Abstract

This paper presents experimental study on six carbonaceous industrial waste samples that were obtained from a local industry in Saskatchewan, Canada. Hereafter, the samples are coded as ES1, ES2, ES3, PU, RPS and SS1 and were characterized using IR and 13C solid state NMR spectroscopy, nitrogen porosimetry, TGA, metal leaching analysis using ICP and point-of-zero-charge. Adsorption studies were conducted using two types of adsorptive dye probes (p-nitrophenol, PNP; and methylene blue; MB) at pH 4.60 and pH 7.00.

Highlights

Uncontrolled release of effluent from the textile industry is one of the major point sources of water pollution through discharge into aquatic environments [1]
Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) is a suitable method for materials characterization since well resolved thermal events can provide insight on the composition of components in composite materials such as supported materials [20]
The first event below 100 ̊C relates to desorption of water and/or vapours since such types of coal materials are known to be hygroscopic [22]

Summary

Introduction

Uncontrolled release of effluent from the textile industry is one of the major point sources of water pollution through discharge into aquatic environments [1]. Dyes are the main chemical constituents employed in this industry and decolourization [2] of the effluent or removal of dye species is required [1]. Various techniques have been employed (cf Table 1 in Ref [4]) for the removal of dyes from textile wastewater effluent. The objectives of this research work relate to the characterization and utilization of carbonaceous industrial waste samples obtained from local industry (SaskPower; principal electric utility in Saskatchewan, Canada) and to study their utility as adsorbents for the removal of model dye systems (p-nitrophenol (PNP) and methylene blue (MB)) to simulate wastewater effluent in contaminated aquatic environments. All chemicals were used as received without further purification unless stated otherwise

Characterization

Sorption

Results and Discussion

Conclusion