PHOSPHORUS REMOVAL FROM PHOSPHATE CONTAINING EFFLUENT USING ANIMAL BONE BASED ACTIVATED CARBON

Phosphate removal capacity of Animal bone based activated carbon (BNE) was investigated through adsorption process. BNE was characterized using Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR), Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Parameters such as adsorbent dosage and pH of the effluent solution were varied. Results obtained show that FT-IR spectrum of the activated carbon displays a number of absorption peaks, reflecting the complex bio-mass structure and a variety of functional groups such as ?OH, -NH, C=O, C-H, C-N, CH3 and CH2 which explains its improved adsorption behaviour on the colloidal particles. SEM shows the morphological changes with respect to shape and size of the activated carbon and it is evident that the carbon particles are in the form of spheres with a wide range of sizes. EDX patterns for BNE adsorbent indicated that C and O are the main constituents though other elements such as Al, Ca, Sn ,P, S and K are also present in low proportion. Removal efficiency of more than 96% was obtained for BNE at the optimum pH of 6, dosage of 50g/l and particle size of 0.2mm.