| dc.description.abstract | As the demand for treatment of industrial wastewater is increasing worldwide, many countries are becoming dependent on methods like Precipitation, Ion Exchange, Filtration, Membrane Filtration, Electro Chemical Treatment and Reverse Osmosis which are relatively expensive.
In this project research, an extensive literature survey was conducted. A simple, inexpensive, efficient and effective was discovered. The research experimentally tested the applicability of mango leaves and Watermelon rind Powders in removing lead (II) ions from wastewater. Laboratory tests were carried out at the Ministry of Water and Environment, Directorate of Water Resources Management (DWRM) and METLAB EAST AFRICA LTD.
The efficiency of the combination of mango leaves and watermelon rind powders as a low-cost adsorbent for the removal of Pb (II) ions from industrial waste water at Uganda Batteries Limited was investigated in this research. The influence of adsorbent load, PH, contact time, adsorbent ratios and agitation rate on a sample were studied in batch experiments at room temperature. The findings showed that the lead uptake increased with increasing adsorbent load, agitation rate, PH and contact time. The maximum uptake of Pb (II) ions was at PH 5, contact time of 1hour, adsorbent load of 5grams with adsorbent ratio of MLP75:WMR25 and agitation rate of 200rpm.
Parameter values were chosen on basis of efficiency and implied cost. These values yielded an average efficiency of 80% when used to adsorb lead from UBL waste water.
The economic analysis showed that the combined adsorbent was more cost effective to treat leaded waste water compared to polyacrylamide. The cost of treatment was reduced by 90%.
The results showed that the combination of watermelon rind and mango leaves has the potential to be applied as alternative low-cost bio sorbent in the remediation of heavy metal contamination in waste water. | en_US |
