Characterization and adsorptive treatment of distillery spent wash using bagasse fly ash

Present invention was indented for characterization and adsorptive (batch and column) treatment of sugar industry distillery spent wash to remove COD (chemical oxygen demand) and color using sugarcane industrial waste, bagasse fly ash (BFA). Distillery spent wash was extremely polluted including acidic pH and very high value of COD, BOD (biological oxygen demand) and color. Sophisticated techniques such as BET (Brunauer–Emmett–Teller) surface area, pore volume, pore diameter, particle size distribution, porosity, FTIR (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy), chemical composition by XRF (X-ray fluorescence) and SEM (scanning electron microscopy) were utilized to analyze BFA as an adsorbent and revealed that BFA surface was highly porous and consisted of various oxides. In batch treatment, different process parameters such as contact duration and temperature w.r.t adsorbent dose, thermodynamic studies and isotherms (Langmuir and Freundlich model) were analyzed. Column adsorption was performed using various variables (bed height, particle size distribution and flow rate), breakthrough parameters and isotherms (Thomas, Yoon–Nelson, BDST and Adams and Bohart model). Adsorption capacities were increased with increasing BFA dose, contact duration, temperature, bed height and decreasing flow rate and average particle size. The maximum adsorption capacity of Langmuir and Thomas model was achieved up to 124.5 mg g−1 and 0.1394 mg g−1, respectively, for COD and 109.8 (Hazen L) gm−1 and 0.2547 (Hazen L) gm−1, respectively, for color. Sugar Industry wastewater stream, i.e., distillery spent wash was shown to be feasible using own industrial solid waste, BFA.