Abstract :

Watermelon seed chaff was used to treat industrial wastewater from a paint industry. The packed bed filtration method was adopted, as the effect of the bed height, together with the adsorbent particle size were monitored. Adsorbent particle sizes of 1.18mm, 0.60mm and 0.125mm were used to pack the glass column at varying heights of 4cm, 6cm, 8cm and 10cm, while 100mls of the wastewater was filtered through the packed bed for each of the twelve cases. The time taken for the filtration, the volume of the treated water recovered, and the volumetric flow rates were all recorded. In the end, the analysis of the water quality test parameters show that the filtration through the smallest adsorbent particle size of 0.125mm packed to the highest height of 10cm had the greatest effect on the wastewater purification by bringing most of the test parameters closer to the permissible limits; giving pH value of 7.00 which is within the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) permissible limit of 6.9; Temperature value of 25.30C within the limit of 20 – 300C; Turbidity result of 201NTU as against the FEPA limit of 250NTU; Conductivity value of 52µs/cm against the specified value of 200µs/cm; TDS and TSS values of 33.8mg/L and 200mg/L against the specified limits of 50mg/L and 250mg/L respectively; and Calcium, Iron and Zinc values of 0.40ppm, 0.07ppm and 23.07ppm which are all within the specified limits of 0.75ppm, 0.3ppm and 50ppm respectively. It is inferred that filtration of wastewater through a packed bed of watermelon seed chaff is a good method of wastewater purification and can be adopted on an industrial scale.