The Use Of Agricultural Waste In Solving Of Environmental Problems In Democratic Republic Of The Congo

The presence of chromium in wastewaters produced from mining industries in Democratic Republic of the Congo is harmful for the environment. As a promising and polishing method for heavy metals removal from wastewaters, adsorption has been used with agricultural waste as low adsorbent. In this study, the use of sugar beet pulp has been investigated for the removal of hexavalent chromium from aqueous in batch adsorption mode. Adsorption experiments were conducted to obtain the optimal conditions combinations for the highest percent removal. Four parameters were studied such as contact time (30–180min), initial chromium concentration (10-50mg/L), pH (2-9) and solid to liquid ratio (0.25 g/100 mL-3 g/100 mL). However, the agitation rate was equal to 100 rpm and the room temperature was considered. The highest percent removals of 90.53% for 10 ppm concentration and 76.34% for 50 ppm concentration were achieved at the following conditions: pH 2, contact time 90 min, S/L ratios of 2 g/100 mL and 3 g/100 mL respectively. Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherms were used for the mathematical description of adsorption equilibrium. Freundlich isotherm fitted well the equilibrium data. The maximum capacity (Qmax) from the Langmuir isotherm was found to be 11.299 mg/g. These results indicated that sugar beet pulp can be used as low cost adsorbent for the removal of chromium from mining industries wastewater to avoid environmental problems