Avaliação do poder adsortivo da palma forrageira (opuntia tuna mill) para uso em remoção de contaminantes hidrogenocarbonados em copos d'água.

Abstract

Organic compounds such as lubricating oils are pollutants difficult to degrade and steadily released in wastewater as a result of various industrial activities. Adsorption is one of the unit operations that has shown efficiency in removing this type of contaminant effluents . The search for adsorbents lower cost is presented as plant biomass as efficient , economic and sustainable options .The objective of this study was to evaluate adsorptive efficiency of cactus pear forage biomass (Opuntia tuna Mill), obtained from two convective drying processes (drying in fixed bed dryer and natural drying), when used for removal used or contaminated lubricating oil, present in sewage water of automotive car washes. In the methodology used, to obtain the biomass in particulate form, after drying, cactus pear forage was submitted to comminution to powder form for particle size selection. This was followed by studying the adsorption kinetics, which evaluated times of 5 to 60 minutes (at 5 min intervals) and equilibrium, whose contaminant concentrations ranged from 5 to 60% (range rate 5%). As a result it was observed that adsorption kinetics is fast with adsorptive efficiency is higher in first minutes of experiment to cactus pear forage obtained by two drying processes. The equilibrium was achieved, with adsorption values low and close to each other. Langmuir isotherm adjusted better to adsorption data of cactus pear forage natural dry. The major contaminant adsorption amount obtained from cactus pear forage dried at 70 °C was 4,164 g.g-1. For dry natural cactus pear forage the greatest amount was 3,865 g.g-1 at equilibrium. Therefore, both drying methods may be used for obtaining cactus pear forage for use as an adsorbent. Cactus pear forage is characterized as an important alternative for removal contaminants of effluents with low concentrations contaminated lubricating oil.