Column Study for Zn, Fe and Cu Removal from Single Metal Aqueous Solutions Using Microwave Incinerated Rice Husk Ash (MIRHA)

Industrial wastewaters frequently contain high levels of heavy metals and treatment is needed before disposal, in order to avoid water pollution. Numerous sources of industrial effluents leading to heavy metal discharges apart from the mining and metal related industries. Research in recent years has focused on the use of rice husk and rice husk ash including numerous by product of agriculture for heavy metals removal. Since rice is the main food source in Malaysia with more than 2.4 million tonnes of paddy produced in Malaysia each year, it is possible rice husk ash can be utilized as an alternative to existing activated carbon. This project is study on column for Zn, Fe and Cu removal from single metal aqueous solutions using Microwave Incinerated Rice Husk Ash (MIRHA). The experiment proposed to assess the effect of using MIRHA as an adsorbent to remove heavy metals in single metal aqueous solution. The objectives of this proposed project are to obtain the breakthrough curves for zinc iron and copper aqueous solutions. The methodology of the study is experimental research. The variable in the proposed experiments are column depth which are 20 cm, 30 cm and 40 cm. Mass of MIRHA used for each column depth were also different which are 3.33 g, 5.00 g and 7.00 g. All experiment were conducted with a flow rate of 5 mL per minute and all results were analyzed using atomic adsorption spectrophotometer (AAS) machine. The results show that the breakthrough time obtained for 40 cm bed depth for zinc, iron and copper were 54 minutes, 70 minutes and 106 minutes. In conclusion, MIRHA has the ability to absorb heavy metal in a single aqueous solution.