Treatment of Brewery Wastewater Effluent Using Activated Carbon Prepared from Coconut Shell

The use and effectiveness of granular and powder activated carbon made from agricultural waste (coconut shell) in the removal of organic matter in wastewater effluents from a brewery industry were investigated. The effect of process variables such as carbonisation temperature, carbonisation duration and activation temperature on the production and quality of activated carbon was studied. Experimental results showed that optimum condition for 250g of 12-15 mm particle size coconut shell was at carbonisation and activation temperatures of 600 and 1000 o C corresponding to the highest values of the methylene blue number for carbonization times of 1 and 2 h respectively. The resulting characteristics of activated carbon product at these conditions were: yield of 20.36%, bulk density of 0.509g/cm 3 , 6.15% ash methylene blue number of 192.6mg/g. Brewery wastewater effluent was treated using a batch adsorption experiment to establish the nature of equilibrium that existed in the wastewateractivated carbon system using powder activated carbon prepared by chemical activation method from coconut shell. The results showed that COD removal of 98% was achieved for carbon dosage of 15mg carbon/100ml of brewery wastewater solution. The experimental adsorption equilibrium data determined for this system was very well correlated by the Freundlich adsorption isotherm given by: 5178 .