Adsorption kinetics of colour removal from palm oil mill effluent using wastewater sludge carbon in column studies

Abstract

Treated palm oil mill effluents (POME) is of great concern as it still has colour from its dissolved organics which may pollute receiving water bodies. In this study, the removal of colour from treated palm oil mill effluent were investigated through adsorption studies using carbon derived from wastewater sludge (WSC). Sludge from activated sludge plants were dried and processed to produce WSC. In this study, three different bed depths of WSC were used: 5 cm, 10 cm, and 15 cm. For each bed depth, the flowrate was varied at three different values: 100 mL/hr, 50 mL/hr and 25 mL/hr. It was found that at bed depth of 5 cm, the breakthrough curves were occurred at 360 min, 150 min and 15 min for flowrates of 25, 50 and 100 mL/hr respectively. It was observed that at a particular depth the exhaustion time for column reduced as flow rate increases. Kinetic models, Adams-Bohart and Yoon-Nelson were used to analyze the performance of the adsorption. It was found that rate constant for Adams Bohart model decreased with the increase in bed depth. Adsorption capacity obtained from Adams-Bohart model ranged from 2676.19 mg/L up to 8938.78 mg/L. The maximum adsorption capacity increases with smaller bed depth. For Yoon-Nelson model, the rate constant decreases with increase in bed depth. The required time for 50% breakthrough obtained from the models ranged from 17.01 to 104.17 minutes for all three bed depths. The reduction of colour was found to be effective at all bed depths. The experimental data was best described by both models as with higher values of correlation coefficient (R2).

Bench-Scale Fixed-Bed Column Study for the Removal of Dye-Contaminated Effluent Using Sewage-Sludge-Based Biochar

“…However, at a higher flow rate, the curve becomes steeper. A similar trend was observed in the literature, during the adsorption of textile-industry effluent, using agro-waste-based activated carbon [58], removal of color from palm-oil-effluent wastewater using a sludge-based activated carbon [24], Chromium adsorption using crosslinked chitosan-Fe (III) complex (Ch-Fe) [59], and removal of Tartrazine anionic dye [60]. This trend, caused by the change in flow rate, could be attributed to the insufficient contact time between the adsorbate and adsorbent at a higher flow rate and to the rapid loading of adsorbent sites [61].…”

“…The initial drying and carbonization of sewage sludge were conducted, following the procedure referred to in our previous study [24]. The sewage sludge came from the field of wastewater treatment plant located at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS.…”

“…Following the collection and natural drying in the sun, raw sewage sludge was dried in an oven, at 80 • C for 24 h. Then, it was carbonized in a muffle furnace, at a temperature of 700 • C for 60 min [25,26]. Henceforth, the produced SSB was, subsequently, ground and sieved to a size between 150 µm and 212 µm [24,27]. Characterization of SSB was conducted by a BET equation, based on the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller method, using an N2 adsorption/desorption isotherm, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).…”

“…A peristaltic pump was used to convey BIE to the columns, at the required flow rate. Glass wool was inserted into the base opening of the column, to avoid any adsorbent leakage, provide the adsorbent bed with physical stability, distribute the solution, and eliminate channeling [24]. The interactions between parameters, including flow rates (16 mL/h, 36 mL/h, and 70 mL/h) and bed depth (5 cm, 8 cm, and 12 cm), were investigated.…”

Mesoporous biochar derived from bamboo waste: Template/hydrothermal preparation and highly efficient pharmaceutical adsorption

“…Carbonaceous materials are widely used as adsorbents in water remediation for the removal of various organic compounds such as pharmaceuticals (Al-Mahbashi et al 2022b;Álvarez-Torrellas et al 2017;Kutty et al 2019;Saeed et al 2020), and the most commonly used carbonaceous adsorbent is activated carbon because of its large surface area, high chemical stability, and good capability of adsorbing various organics and heavy metals (Al-mahbashi et al 2021(Al-mahbashi et al , 2022aKyriakopoulos and Doulia 2006). However, one of the limitations regarding the application of commercial activated carbon in pharmaceutical removal from water is its pore textural properties.…”