Activated Carbon Fixed-Bed Adsorber Design for Treating Chromium Hexavalent Wastewater

摘要

Pollution caused by industrial wastewater containing heavy metals is a serious problem, primarily due to its toxic nature. One of cheap yet effective methotds to deal with such waste water is activated carbon adsorption. The purpose of this research is to evaluate and design a fixed bed adsorber with granular activated carbon as an adsorbent to process the wastewater containing chromium hexavalent (Cr 6+). Experiments show that the Langmuir isotherm fits the equilibrium data as good as the Freundlich isotherm. Activated Carbon used in this research is Jacobi 2000? derived from Bituminous Coal. The lab scale inlet volumetric flow is 100 mL/h with different Cr6+ concentration for each run, 20 and 35 ppm, respectively. Based on scale-up calculation with Length Of Unused Bed (LUB) method, for superficial flow of 400 L.m-2.min-1 and service time of 6 months, the column dimensions for inlet concentration of 20 ppm is 0.62 m diameter and 2.33 m height with 1.87 m Carbon bed depth. Meanwhile, a slightly bigger column (0.63 m diameter and 2.37 m height column with 1.89 m Carbon bed) is necessary for treating inlet concentration of 35 ppm.