Defluoridation of Groundwater Using Formaldehyde-Treated Agricultural Waste- Wheat, Oats, And Pea Straw

Abstract

Shahjad Ali, Jaydev Kumar Mahato, Sunil Kumar Gupta, Alok Sinha, Raisul Islam

The present study investigates the potential of acid-treated agricultural waste (Wheat, Oat, and Pea straw) for the defluoridation of groundwater following the chemical treatment using formaldehyde in 1:5 w/v ratio at 50°C. The effects of operational parameters (pH, dose, time, and initial fluoride concentration) were investigated in the batch mode. Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to predicted and validated the experimental findings. The efficiency of developed adsorbents was compared with commercially available activated carbon (CAC) and found suitable for working at neutral pH conditions. The better applicability of Langmuir isotherm on adsorption data reflects monolayer adsorption over the homogeneous surface of adsorbents. Further, the experimental data can better be modeled by the pseudo-second-order kinetics (R2 = 0.996). The simple synthesis technique and massive raw material availability made these adsorbents a promising and cost-effective tecnhiqe for removing the fluoride from groundwater.

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