Adsorption of colour, TSS and COD from palm oil mill effluent (POME) using acid-washed coconut shell activated carbon: Kinetic and mechanism studies

Abstract

Abstract. The disposal of palm oil mill effluent (POME) without proper treatment before being discharged into natural water sources has become undesirable because of high concentration of suspended solid (SS), oil and grease (O&G), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD). This study investigated the feasibility of removing colour, total suspended solid (TSS) and COD using acid-washed coconut shell based activated carbon (CSAC) through the evaluation of the adsorption uptake as well as the adsorption kinetics and mechanism. The percentage removal of colour, TSS and COD from POME onto CSAC were 61%, 39%, 66%, respectively achieved within 48 hours of contact time. The kinetic models studied were pseudo-first-order (PFO), pseudo-secondorder (PSO), and Elovich models. The intra-particle diffusion (IPD) model was studied to interpret the adsorption diffusion mechanism. The adsorption of colour, TSS and COD onto CSAC were best interpreted by the PSO model, and well fitted by the Elovich model. The IPD and Boyd plots indicated that IPD and film diffusion controlled the adsorption of colour, TSS and COD onto the CSAC.

Decolourisation of Palm Oil Mill Effluent (Pome) Treatment Technologies: A Review

“…This showed that the adsorption took place on a heterogeneous surface, rather than the homogenous surface (Mohammed, 2013). Similar result was obtained by Sia et al (2017) who revealed that the POME colour adsorption mechanism was mainly due to heterogenous system and chemical sorption. The adsorption rate was affected more by the number of available adsorption sites on the adsorbent surface than the effect of POME solution concentration.…”

“…Furthermore, this membrane showed very minimal signs of fouling and able to operate until five continuous cycles. Similar study was carried out by Tan et al (2017) who applied the same type of UF membrane but the incorporation of metal oxide was different. In this study, PVDF UF membrane incorporated with coupled zinc-iron oxide (ZIO) nanoparticles and was fabricated via similar phase inversion process.…”

“…The difference was PKS was activated by steam and the maximum colour removal was 76% within 72 hr. Another study by Sia et al (2017) also performed adsorption method to remove colour from POME using acid washed-coconut shell activated carbon. It was successfully used to remove the colour with percentage removal of 61% within 48 hr.…”

“…Generally, zinc oxide as nanoparticles was used to improve the membrane hydrophilicity resulting in low pressure operation and high permeation for AT-POME (Tan et al, 2017). Membrane porosity and surface area, membrane surface charge and membrane wettability influenced the membrane performance in removal of colour from AT-POME.…”

Adsorption of cationic dye onto fly ash-based geopolymer: Batch and fixed bed column studies

“…Recently, many different technologies have been utilized for removal of hazardous pollutants from water and wastewater, including biochemical methods [3], membrane separation [4], ion-echange [5], ultrafiltration [6], photocatalysis [7], coagulation/flocculation [8], and adsorption [9]. Among the mentioned methods, adsorption has some advantage when compared aforementioned conventional methods in terms the simplicity of utilization, effectiveness, low cost, no sludge formation, etc.…”