Adsorption and Desorption Efficiency of a Sugarcane Bagasse in the Removal of Fe²⁺ from a Galvanizing Industry

Disposal of industrial effluent is of health concern. Especially effluent from industries such as metal galvanizing, tannery, metallurgical, mining, chemical, battery and nuclear, agriculture, and others that generate heavy metals which deteriorate soil, groundwater quality and bio accumulate in food chains these are particularly harmful to both plants and animals. Removing Heavy Metals are mostly expensive, this necessitate researches on the efficient and effective use of agro based low cost adsorbent, which is also an efficient form of agricultural waste disposal. This study is to remove Fe²⁺ ions in industrial wastewater using raw Sugarcane Bagasse (SCB) adsorbent. The initial concentration of Fe²⁺ ions in the industrial (galvanizing) wastewater was first analyzed to determine the removal efficiency of SCB in adsorbing Fe²⁺ from wastewater and the optimum conditions (such as effect of phase contact time, rotating speed and concentration dosage) of the adsorbent was determined. The following characteristics of the agro waste material and wastewater were determined; Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy FTIR analysis, digestion of wastewater samples and Atomic Absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) analysis. The results show that percentage removal of Fe²⁺ ions from aqueous solution was 95.11% with the raw sugarcane bagasse adsorbent. The sorption capacity decreases with increasing dosage concentration and phase contact time and the desorption studies demonstrated important data for the regeneration and recovery of both adsorbent and heavy metal ions. (paper)