Preliminary Study of Waste-Delivered Biosorbents to Remove Nutrients from Rice Mill Wastewater

Abstract

The objective of this study was to compare the performance of waste derived biosorbents - rice hull and peanut hull in removing nutrients from rice mill wastewater. Batch adsorption experiments were conducted for both biosorbents separately for varying doses (0–6 g/L) and contact times (0–300 min) under uniform experimental conditions to determine the optimum dosage and optimum contact time respectively. The efficiencies of the biosorbents were tested in terms of removal (%) of nitrates and phosphates from wastewater. Results revealed, the rice hull and the peanut hull do significantly remove nutrients from the wastewater (p-value<0.05). The optimum doses of rice hull and peanut hull were 3 g/L and 4 g/L respectively, and the optimum contact time were 120 mins and 180 mins at their optimum doses and shaking of 150 rpm