Utilization of Wheat and Pigeon Pea Husk Adsorbents to Remove Copper and Nickel from Industrial Wastewater

Abstract

The importance of the removal of heavy metals from industrial wastewater has received immense attention due to the increase of industrialization and heavy metals potential to harm human health. Different conventional methods are used for removing heavy metal contamination, but these methods have several disadvantages. Adsorption process is a simple, economical, and effective method to remove toxic heavy metals from industrial wastewater, but conventional adsorbents are neither readily available nearby nor economic therefore agro-based adsorbents are developed with chemical and thermal treatment. Developed adsorbents from the wheat husk and pigeon pea husk are used in filter units as filter media in combination with sand and aggregate. Activated wheat husk and pigeon pea husk adsorbents significantly removed Cu with 75.42% and 77% efficiency respectively and Ni with 72.50% and 74.17% respectively from industrial wastewater. This paper also studied the removal efficiency by varying pH and turbidity in synthetic solutions. The extent of removal of heavy metals by developed agro-based adsorbents is also correlated by proximate analysis, fixed carbon content 30 to 32%, bulk density 0.42 to 0.61 g/cc, iodine number 75.34 to 852.31, and chemical composition of adsorbents containing SiO2 . Characterization of prepared adsorbents also supported that developed adsorbents have great potential to carry the adsorption process to remove heavy metals from water and wastewater.