REMOVAL OF HEAVY METALS FROM WINERY WASTEWATER BY USING NATURAL ADSORBENTS.

Winery wastewater compositions are highly variable and differ significantly from season to season. Heavy metals, such as Cd, Pb, Cu, Ni, Zn, Mn and Mg are present in the wastewater. The quantity of heavy metals in winery wastewater can be reduced by an adsorption process with good efficiency. For our comparative adsorption efficiency study, four adsorbents, such as neem leaf, orange peel, coconut husk and saw dust were used. All the adsorbents were sieved through a 0.25mm pore size sieve. Polypropylene bottles with 300mL capacity were filled with 50mL of the winery wastewater and 2g of each adsorbent. The bottles were shaken for 1hour at 180rpm on a rotary shaker at room temperature and after shaking, the samples were filtered and analyzed for their elemental concentrations of heavy metals on AAS, to verify the adsorption capacities of the adsorbents. The results show that saw dust and coconut husk can be used for Cu, for Zn saw dust and orange peel, for Mn coconut husk and orange peel and for Mg orange peel and coconut husk as adsorbents for a partial removal of these metals from the wastewater. The method is simple and cheap and may be applied on a large scale for the removal of heavy metals from industrial wastewaters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]