Treatment of egg processing industry effluent using chitosan as an adsorbent

Abstract

The objective of the present study was to investigate the efficiency of chitosan as an adsorbent for the treatment of wastewater from the egg processing industry. Parameters affecting the effluent treatment process, such as pH, chitosan dosage, settling time and initial chemical oxygen demand (COD) on the reduction percentage of turbidity, COD and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) were studied. The optimum conditions were found to be pH 4, chitosan dosage of 1.1 g L-1 and a settling time of 40 min. The maximum reduction percentage of turbidity, COD and BOD were found to be 94, 88 and 83 %, respectively. The effective adsorption process was confirmed by FT-IR spectral analysis. The experimental data were analyzed by different isotherm and kinetic models. The Langmuir isotherm type I model satisfactorily described the adsorption mechanism. The rate of COD reduction followed a pseudo-firstorder kinetic model. A four factor, three levels Box-Behnken response surface design was employed to develop second order polynomial mathematical models from the experimental data. © 2014 SCS. All rights reserved.