Decontamination of Wastewater Effluent using Sugar Cane Bagasse and Soybean Hulls

Abstract

Abstract Wastewater effluents from industrial processes often pose environmental as well as health risks to humans when these waters are consumed without proper trexatment. In this study, distilled water and citric acid were used as modifiers in order to establish the comparative abilities of modified soybean hull and sugarcane bagasse as means of reducing copper and zinc chlorides to their metals and subsequently adsorbing the metals in order to propose both materials as low cost adsorbents for heavy metals. Based on the results, the modified soybeans have good potential for adsorbing Cu metal while sugarcane bagasse showed preferential adsorption of Zn from waste water. Also, results from optimization gave a pH of 4 and 5 for the modified forms of the bagasse and soybean respectively. While a mass of 1g of each adsorbent gave the best removal rate for their preferred metals, the optimum volume for the highest metal adsorption was found to be for solvent of 35 ml/g adsorbent. Adsorption rate was found to increase with temperature and time for both adsorbents.