Recovery of Lead (II) Ion from Industrial Wastewater using Activated Periwinkle Char in Fixed Bed Adsorption Process

The discharge of untreated industrial wastewater containing lead and the indiscriminate disposal of periwinkle shell causes lead poisoning and blockage of drainage. The cost of industrial wastewater treatment is demanding; thus the research is focused on creating wealth from waste periwinkle shell as a cheap adsorbent material to reduce the cost of lead removal from industrial wastewater. Therefore, activated periwinkle shell char (APSC) in removal of lead Pb (II) ion from industry wastewater was investigated using fixed-bed adsorption column. APSC was prepared by treating the periwinkle Char with 1M H2SO4 solution. Characterization of the adsorbent before and after continuous adsorption was performed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to show modifications in the surface and chemical structure of APSC after adsorption process. The effect of design variables such as bed height, Influent concentration and withdrawal flowrate were  studied. The breakthrough profiles were obtained by an analysis of the column experimental data and the relationship between operating parameters using the Thomas, Clark, Yoon-Nelson and Adams-Bohart models. The equilibrium data was best represented by the Yoon and Nelson model having the highest correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.9751. This suggest that Activated periwinkle shell char is a potential adsorbent for heavy metals removal from industrial wastewater.