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ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of the adsorption process and chemical precipitation technique in terms of metal removal from wastewater and overall economics. Activated carbon adsorbent obtained from pulverized coal was used to remove heavy metals from wastewater, as was the use of caustic soda to precipitate heavy metals from the same wastewater. Design expert 13 using Box-Behnken design was used to generate the experimental runs in which the batch adsorption (using pulverized coal) and batch Sodium sulphide precipitation studies were carried out. Respective optimal efficiencies of 99.0909%, 97.2731% and 98.9585% for Zn, Cu and Cd removal was obtained for the adsorption process while optimal efficiencies of 99.686%, 98.2652% and 96.5329% for Zn, Cu, and Cd removal was obtained for the Sodium sulphide precipitation. The adsorption method using pulverized coal is inferred to be a better procedure for the removal of Zn, Cu, and Cd from the produced wastewater because of the toxic nature of Na2S and the increased cost implications to remove dissolved sulphide compounds in the filtrate.
