Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) reduction in industrial wastewater using activated carbon prepared from foxtail palm fruit

Industrial wastewater has become one of the major sources that contributes to pollution in water bodies. The water discharge from the industrial activities carries out pollutant which can cause several impacts towards the human and ecosystem. Textile industry specifically have great amount of chemicals input which eventually affect the value of acceptable conditions for discharge of industrial effluent especially the value of chemical oxygen demand (COD). Thus, this research was carried out to evaluate the reduction of chemical oxygen demand (COD) in industrial wastewater from the adsorption of activated carbon derived from Wodyetia bifureata fruit or commonly known as foxtail palm fruit. The adsorption study was done on the treatment of wastewater collected from the textile industry located in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Chemical activation with nitric acid (HNO3) was used for the conversion of foxtail palm fruit powder to activated carbon. A series of batch adsorption were carried out to study the effect of adsorbent dosage, contact time and concentration of wastewater on the percentage of COD reduction. The optimum condition for the adsorption process in this study was obtained at 90 minutes of contact time with the concentration of 5 % using 2 g of activated carbon. The percentage reduction of COD value obtained at these conditions was 71.23 %.