Treatment of dairy wastewater by commercial activated carbon and bagasse fly ash: Parametric, kinetic and equilibrium modelling, disposal studies.

Present study reports treatment of synthetic dairy wastewater (SDW) in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal by means of adsorption onto activated carbon-commercial grade (ACC) and bagasse fly ash (BFA). Optimum conditions for SDW treatment were found to be: initial pH approximately 4.8, adsorbent dose of 20g/l for ACC and 10g/l for BFA and contact time approximately 8h. Pseudo-second-order kinetic model was found to fit the kinetic data and Redlich-Peterson isotherm model was generally found to best represent the equilibrium data for SDW treatment by ACC and BFA. The change in entropy and enthalpy for SDW adsorption onto ACC and BFA were estimated as 125.85kJ/molK and 91.53kJ/mol; and 25.71kJ/molK and 17.26kJ/mol, respectively. The negative values of change in Gibbs free energy indicate the feasibility and spontaneous nature of the adsorptive treatment. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.