Abstract
Low cost adsorbents such as P. australis have received considerable interest owing to their low cost and easy availability. The aim of the present study was the evaluation of the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), total suspended and dissolved solids (TSS and TDS) using dried P. australis in influent wastewater to a wastewater treatment plant. The results of the COD and BOD concentration reduction with P. australis at optimum operating conditions were determined for maximum reduction and adsorption isotherms. The maximum reduction of COD, BOD, TSS and TDS concentrations under the optimum operating conditions was 92.27%, 93.89%, 94.38% and 91.61%, respectively. The results demonstrate that the new dried biosorbent is able to adsorb all the aforementioned contamination. It achieved an adsorption capacity for COD of 72.5 mg g(-1) and an adsorption capacity for BOD of 43.93 mg g(-1). The results were well fitted by the pseudo-second order model with R (2) = 0.984.