Tag Archive for: Effluent

Adsorption of contaminants in textile wastewater onto activated carbon derived from two wood species has been studied using batch-adsorption techniques. This study was carried out to examine the removal efficiency of the low-cost adsorbent (Afzelia africana) AFA and (Acacia albida) ACA for the removal of heavy metals and other organic contaminants from textile effluents. The influence of contact time and adsorbent dose kept constant on the adsorption process was also studied. Removal efficiency increased with increase in contact time. The two adsorbents had an average removal efficiency of 60% at 90mins contact time for Zn. The ACA had higher removal efficiency for chromium at all contact times than AFA except at 120mins contact time where there existed a slight difference in the removal efficiency between the two adsorbents. Removal efficiency of iron was high between 58.18- 70.52% and 72.75-75.86% for AFA and ACA carbon respectively. This showed that iron had high affinity to the adsorbents surface. It was observed that AFA exhibited highest removal efficiency for nitrate at all contact times as compared to ACA. Results indicated that the freely abundant, locally available, low-cost adsorbent derived from the two wood species could be treated as being economically viable for the removal of contaminants from textile effluents.