Treatment of effluents from jewellery industries by using activated carbons prepared from Epiphyllum oxypetalum (Cactace) wastes.

Epiphyllum oxypetalum is a species of cactus and one of the most commonly grown of the Epiphyllum species. It is one of the under-utilized resources available in the tropical regions of the globe and can be used as a substitute for digitalis. The Shoshone Indian tribe calls the night blooming Cereus-Pain in the heart� and used it for heart pain. Scanty work was reported on the phytochemical properties of leaf extract and no documented research work was reported on its leaf and flower for assessment of adsorption studies. Thus the present investigation was carried out to access the adsorptive studies of plant wastes. The activated carbons was prepared Epiphyllum oxypetalum waste by H3PO4 activation. The adsorption kinetics of jewellery effluents was studied by the activated carbons, which are suitably described by simple kinetic models, pseudo first order and pseudo second order equations. The optimum temperature was found to be 300 °C and the adsorption data fitted well onto Freundlich, Langmuir and Tempkin adsorption isotherm models. The high surface area of activated carbons were demonstrated to be promising adsorbents for pollution control and for other applications.