Treatment of Automotive Gas Oil (Ago) - Contaminated Water Using Activated Carbon from Indian Bamboo

This study investigated the ability of activated carbon extracted from Nigerian-grown Indian bamboo, to absorb hydrocarbon from automotive gas oil -contaminated water. The water was polluted in the ratio of 3:1 (that is, 3parts of water to 1part of automotive gas oil), and then made to flow through 250?m and 500?m activated carbon in a fixed bed adsorption experimental set-up. The effluent from each size of activated carbon was then analysed. The result showed that the activated carbon’s ability to reduce contaminants was, in part, a function of its pore size. Although, the two pore sizes of the activated carbon were able to achieve almost 100% reduction of total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) and total hydrocarbon content (THC), the 250?m pore size could only reduce 67.7% of the hydrocarbon utilizing fungi count, compared to 70.4% by the 500?m size. For the hydrocarbon utilizing bacterial count, the levels of reduction were 68.6% and 73.2% for 250?m and 500?m respectively. On the whole, the activated carbon had great potential for the reduction of contaminants from automotive gas oil contaminated water.