Industrial Wastewater Colour and Heavy Metals Removal by Biosorption - Marine Algae and Moringa olifera seed

Abstract

With rapid modern industrialization there is an  increases of the growth rate of various pollution sources in the universe. Industries releases wide range of dissolved heavy metals as inorganic and phenolic compounds as organic pollutants in an  effluent. Industrial effluents having heavy metals were known as a major important resource for water pollution. The contaminations make large volume of environmental crisis that are being faced by the humanity today. Various treatment processes are available and are extensively studied for the treatment of the polluted waters and wastewaters from various industrial sectors. One of the most promising and viable methods for wastewater treatment is the biosorption method.  Biosorption is used as an alternate treatment method and are replacing the conventional methods. Moringa olifera(activated carbon) and marine algae are used in the biosorption process of treatment of tannery effluent water. Marine algae adsorb large amount of heavy metallic ions is due to the availability of different chemical functional groups on the cell surface, as a result of physico-chemical interaction. In this study, biosorption of Cr(VI) and Pb(II) ions from aqueous solutions using Moringa olifera and Marine algae(Kappaphycus alvarezii) is investigated as a function of pH, initial metal ion concentration, biosorbent dose and contact time. At the optimum adsorption pH values, the maximum uptake capacity for chromium is estimated as 73.106 mg g^?1 and for lead 79.145 mg g^?1. Equilibrium data is well described by the Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption relations. The presence of functional groups is confirmed using (FTIR) spectroscopy and the metal ions are analyzed by AAS method using specific lamps at specific wavelength.  The result shows that Moringa olifera(activated carbon) and marine algae as biosorption materials has very good potential for the removal of heavy metal ions and colour from the tannery wastewater.