THE EFFICIENCY OF MELON SEED SHELL ACTIVATED CARBON FOR THE REDUCTION OF COD AND BOD FROM A BEVERAGE INDUSTRY WASTEWATER VIA RESPONSE SURFACE METHODOLOGY

ABSTRACT

This study focused on the removal of biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) from beverage industry wastewater using activated carbon prepared from melon seed shell (MSSAC). KOH was used to activate the char produced by carbonization, techniques including scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) were done to characterise the MSSAC to determine the micro-structure and surface area of the activated carbon. The three independent variables, MSSAC dosage, pH and contact time were selected to develop mathematical models for COD and BOD removal efficiency by adsorption process using response surface methodology (RSM). The predicted models were statistically optimised to maximize COD and BOD removal. The optimal values were predicted to be a MSSAC dose of 3.86g, pH of 7.84, and a contact time of 105 min for a minimised COD and BOD values of 22.57 mg/L and 22.14 mg/L respectively.