Reduction of COD in Resin Production Wastewater Using Three Types of Activated Carbon

In this work, the efficiency of activated carbon derived from carbonized date pits (ADP) and rice husks (ARH) was compared with commercial activated carbon (CAC) for the reduction of COD in wastewater arising from resin manufacturing plant. The process was studied in batch mode with employing different absorbents optimizing various parameters, such as adsorbent dosage, contact time and pH. Adsorption equilibrium and kinetic data were determined for the three adsorbents and were fitted to several isotherm and kinetic models accordingly. The results indicated that a maximum COD reduction of 92.4% was obtained at pH 2 using 30 g/L CAC, 90.3% using 40g/L ADP and 88.9% using 60 g/L ARH. Kinetically, the results data showed that reduction of COD onto the three adsorbents was better fitted to pseudo second-order model. Equilibrium adsorption data for the reduction of COD effluent using CAC, ADP and ARH were best fitted to the Langmuir isotherm model.