Adsorption of Phenol from Refinery Wastewater Using Rice Husk Activated Carbon

Industries such as petroleum refineries continuously generate large volumes of wastewater thatcontain high concentrations of phenol; therefore wastewater treatment as an integral part of their activities isrequired. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate the applicability of rice husk activated carbon inan adsorption column for the treatment of phenolic refinery wastewater. Effects of bed depth (of the obtainedrice husk activated carbon) and flow rate (of the waste water) on the sorption of phenol from the waste waterwere investigated. Column models such as Bed Depth Service Time, Thomas and Yoon Nelson models wereemployed to analyze the experimental data. The column adsorption experiment attained adsorption capacity of28mg/g at breakthrough point of 0.5, flow rate of 4.5ml/min and bed depth of 7.5cm. The performance of thecolumn adsorption was affected by bed depth and flow rate and models such as Thomas and Yoon Nelsoncould be employed in estimation of design parameters and scale-up operations during pilot or full scaleapplication.

Keywords:

Rice husk , Adsorption model , Adsorption column , Refinery wastewater