Comparative Study of Adsorbents for Treatment of Industrial Effluent

Water contaminated with various impurities is considered as wastewater and industrial wastewater obtainedfrom industries is known as effluent. The industrial effluent adversely affects the aquatic ecosystems,deteriorate human health, and degrades overall environmental quality. Treatment of such effluent withadsorbent is one of the most efficient and cost-effective method. In the present study, industrial effluent wastreated with various bio-adsorbents obtained from orange peels, cotton, neem tree bark. Effect of adsorptionon parameters like pH, COD, BOD, TDS and TSS were determined and their results were compared withcommercial grade activated charcoal. For majority of the parameters, the effectiveness of adsorbent varied as:activated charcoal > tree bark-based adsorbent > cotton-based adsorbent > orange peels-based adsorbent.Effect of pretreatment- acid treatment- was also examined for cotton and tree bark-based adsorbent.Phosphoric acid was proven to be better acid for pretreatment in comparison with sulfuric acid. For tree barkbased adsorbent treated with phosphoric acid, % removal for COD, BOD, TDS and TSS were 46.5 %, 57.06%, 35.51% and 90.43% respectively