COD Treatment of Printing Ink Wastewater by Column Adsorption using Activated Carbon

Abstract

Direct discharge of untreated industrial effluents containing high COD is hazardous to the environment. This study explores the efficiency of commercial activated carbon to uptake of the organic components responsible for the chemical oxygen demand of ink wastewater by column adsorption. The main objective of this research is to reduce the COD of ink wastewater to below its predetermined standard adopted from WHO and Environmental Quality Regulation 2009. For this purpose, the wastewater was investigated by analyzing its characteristic including pH, TSS, TDS, BOD, colour, turbidity and COD. Meanwhile, activated carbon used is PKSAC (Palm Kernel Shell Activated Carbon). COD adsorption studies with this activated carbon were carried out under different conditions and influence by different parameters such as pH and bed height in column adsorption. The performance study showed the condition in which pH does not show significant effect on the COD removal and the highest percentage of COD removal were found at bed height 3 cm with the percentage removal of 65%. This indicate, % of COD removal increase with increasing in bed height. Furthermore, the minimum bed height required to treat the water sample was recorded to be 0.8 cm analyzed by BDST model. The present study prove that the activated carbon was one of the effective ways in removal of COD.