Treatment of Textile Waste Water using Different Local Absorbents

Abstract

The waste water resulting from textile industries is a major environmental pollutant, and it can also contaminate soil, when deposited on the ground. There are various commercially available adsorbents for treatment of waste water, however, cheaper alternatives are being proposed in this study. Waste water, highly alkaline and high in suspended solids and colour, was used for the investigation. Different proportions of local materials, sugarcane bagasse, saw dust, maize, and lime stone, were utilized in the process, thus, with a view to ascertain their efficiency to modify the water properties: colour, turbidity, sulfate, chromium, iron, Chemical Oxygen Demand, and Biochemical Oxygen Demand. While a dosage of 1-5 ml per 250 ml of sample was added for the adsorption process, activated carbon was replaced with each natural adsorbents by 0-100% replacement at 20% intervals and added to the sample water. The optimum adsorbent dosage was obtained by making many trials with different dosages and different pH. The adsorption process was done by using adsorption column. The results showed that the alternative materials studied, could be used effectively for treatment of textile industrial waste water, with performance similar to the conventional adsorbents