FEASIBILITY STUDIES ON DEFLUORIDATION OF WATER USING NATURAL ADSORBENTS

Abstract

Fluorides are the major pollutants present in the effluents from various industries and ground water sources.
These are highly toxic to living beings and have a hazardous effect on their health. Thus the removal of fluoride using bio
sorbents is a major step towards the protection of environment. Adsorption is the most effective and widely used method
and is applicable for the removal of fluoride even at low concentrations This paper presents the results of investigations
carried out for removal of Fluoride from water by using natural adsorbents i.e. Amla bark powder, Neem bark powder,
Ground granulated blast furnace slag, Waste lime, Sugarcane baggase. The fluoride removal efficiency of adsorbents
was investigated by batch wise adsorption experiment. The effect of various important parameters on the % removal was
studied to find the optimum condition for the maximum removal of fluorides. The parameters like contact time, adsorbent
dose, height of column and pH were investigated. The optimum pH, height of column, adsorbent dose and contact time
were found to be 5, 15ml, 20g/l and 50 min. respectively for which there was maximum fluoride removal. All the results
were validated on the basis of statistical analysis. All the graphs were fitted to various trend lines. Out of which the
equation of most fitted trend line was adopted for the validation and deviation were observed.