Treatment of Wastewater from a Dairy Industry Using Rice Husk as Adsorbent: Treatment Efficiency, Isotherm, Thermodynamics, and Kinetics Modelling

Effluent from milk processing unit contains soluble organics, suspended solids, and trace organics releasing gases, causing taste and odor, and imparting colour and turbidity produced as a result of high consumption of water from the manufacturing process, utilities and service section, chemicals, and residues of technological additives used in individual operations which makes it crucial matter to be treated for preserving the aesthetics of the environment. In this experimental study after determination of the initial parameters of the raw wastewater it was subjected to batch adsorption study using rice husk. The effects of contact time, initial wastewater concentration, pH, adsorbent dosage, solution temperature and the adsorption kinetics, isotherm, and thermodynamic parameters were investigated. The phenomenon of adsorption was favoured at a lower temperature and lower pH in this case. Maximum removal as high as 92.5% could be achieved using an adsorbent dosage of 5 g/L, pH of 2, and temperature of 30°C. The adsorption kinetics and the isotherm studies showed that the pseudo-second-order model and the Langmuir isotherm were the best choices to describe the adsorption behavior. The thermodynamic parameters suggested that not only was the adsorption by rice husk spontaneous and exothermic in nature but also the negative entropy change indicated enthalpy driven process.