Treatment of Industrial Waste Water by using Orange Peels and Fish Scales

An experimental investigation was carried out for the treatment of diary waste water using low cost adsorbents. The peels of orange and fish scales were used as adsorbents in this study by carbonization and dehydration (bio sorption) methods and the effect of pH, contact time, adsorbent dosage, and adsorbent particle size in removal of pollutants present in dairy wastewater was evaluated. The studies showed that the orange peels are more effective than the fish scales in the removal of pollutants from the dairy wastewater. The carbonization method is found to be more efficient than the de-hydration method for both, orange and fish scales with high percentage removal of 50.1% and 31.25% respectively. The orange peels found to be more efficient in both methods with highest percentage removal of 50.1% and 14.3% respectively compared to the fish scales where percentage removal is found to be 31.25% & 8.2% respectively for the de-hydration method and carbonization method. The optimum pH for both methods, orange and fish scales found to be in a range between 6-8. The optimum contact time for de-hydration method of orange peel and carbonization method of fish scales is 120 min and for de-hydration of fish scales and carbonization of orange peel is 150 min. The optimum adsorbent dosage for the dehydration method of orange peel is 0.15 g and for fish scales is 0.25g. The optimum adsorbent dosage for carbonization of orange and fish scales is 0.3g and the optimum particle size for methods, orange and fish scales are 300µm.