rice husk, phenol, aqueous solutions, adsorption, wastewater

Abstract

This investigation is related to study the potential of Iraqi Rice Husk (IRH) (which is considered as a type of agricultural waste that is difficult to discard in a conventional methods) on thephenolpollutant removal from wastewaterusing different design parameters by adsorption process.The design parameters studied to adsorb phenol using IRH as an adsorbent material were initial concentration of phenol, adsorbance material packingheight which was IRH, pH of phenol feed inlet,treatment time,feed flow rate and feed temperature, these parameters were varied from (1-100) mg/l, (10-100) cm, (1-8), (1-60) min, (5-100) ml/min and (20–55°C) respectively. Results show that the higher removal efficiency was89.73% for phenolfrom aquatic solution and this efficiency was decreased with increasing of initial concentration,flow rate andpH while the removal efficiency increased with increasingabsorbance material bed height and feeding temperature. Statistical model is achieved to find an expression combined all operating parameters with the removal efficiency for phenolused in this paper in a general equation.By this way we can possess different benefits which are: removal of the toxic phenol contaminated water, and get rid of agricultural waste IRH.At in the same time, we can discard more toxic waste in an eco-friendly way.