DEVELOPMENT OF ACTIVATED CARBON FROM COMBINED PLASTIC WASTE FOR TREATING INDUSTRIAL PULP AND PAPER MILL EFFLUENT

Abstract

An adsorbent was prepared from combined plastic waste and characterized in comparison with commercial adsorbents. The adsorption study was carried out for elimination of lignin and colour from the EOP stream of a paper mill effluent by using activated carbon in 100 mL batch experiments. Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models were employed to analyze the adsorption isotherms and it was found that the Freundlich model could fit the data better than the Langmuir model. The value of constant ‘n’ was found to be >1, indicating the nature of adsorption is physical. The RL value (<1) confirmed the favorability of the adsorption process. The removal efficiency of the developed adsorbent (AC-CPW) was found to be 82.7 ± 1.32% for lignin, and 94.5 ± 2.71% for colour, at 10 g/100 mL adsorbent dose. The results demonstrate that abundant plastic waste can be turned into an adsorbent to be used for removal of pollutants from highly contaminated EOP stream of paper mill effluents.