Efficiency of Tea Disposal from Cafeteria for Removal Nickel ion from Contaminated Groundwater

Abstract

This work aims to study the removal of Nickel from ground water using low cost adsorbent tea waste from cafeteria. The total adsorbed amounts, equilibrium uptakes and overall removal efficiency of Nickel were determined by investigating the breakthrough curve obtained at different inlet Nickel concentrations, various pH value, gain size of waste tea and bed height. Decrease in the grain size of adsorbent tea from 0.3 to 0.05 cm resulted in essential increase in the removal rate and total adsorbed amounts while increasing the bed depth leads the increase of bed capability and the breakthrough period. The experimental data were calibrated using three isotherm models, Dubinin- Radushkevich (DRM) Langmuir (LM) , Freundlich (FM) where the experimental data is well fitted to the Langmuir (LM). Experimental and theoretical breakthrough study showed that the prolonged breakthrough period and maximum capability of nickel is achieved at pH of 3, 125 mg/L of inlet concentration and 0.5 m of bed depth. As a final engineering observation, waste tea from cafeteria is a good and low-cost material that can absorb nickel from groundwater.