Agricultural Waste Adsorbents For Heavy Metals Removal From Wastewater

Abstract

With the onset of urbanization and industrialization mankind has witnessed various environmental issues in the society. One of the impacts is visible, in form of water pollution containing heavy metals. Removal of these metals from wastewater by adsorption demands low operating cost. Use of low cost adsorbent is one way of reducing the treatment cost. In the present research biosorption was carried out in a batch process to test the suitability of sugar cane bagasse and corn hob for removal of Cr (II) and Fe (II) ions from waste water effluent. The removal of heavy metals like chromium and iron by these adsorbents has been studied. Also, effect of parameters like contact time, pH and adsorbent dose on the metal removal is studied. The contact time was 100 min for both substrates. The results indicated that the amount of absorbed metal ions varied with substrates materials, and the maximum percentage removal was 91 percent for iron and 92.4 percent for chromium. The adsorption process was dependent on the parameters like contact time, pH and adsorbent dose. With adsorbent dose, the percent removal increases up to certain point and thereafter remains constant. The adsorption was more in acidic conditions. The percentage removal increases with time up to certain point and then remains constant because of saturation.