Phosphorus removal through adsorption on locally prepared adsorbents

Abstract

Adsorbents were prepared from animal bones to adsorb phosphate from its aqueous solution. Samples were carbonised at 850oC in the muffle furnace and activated separately with three different activating chemicals namely KOH, H3PO4 and ZnSO4. The work compares the activating efficiencies of different chemicals, the effect of contact time and particle sizes on the equilibrium sorption.The results show that within the first five minutes of the process, the removal efficiencies of the 0.5mm particle size adsorbents that were activated with H3PO4, KOH and ZnSO4 were 49.93%, 48.64% and 47.42% respectively while those 0.8mm particle size adsorbents of the same order of activating chemicals were 49.64%, 47.13% and 45.63% respectively.