Pharmaceutical Industry Wastewater Treatment Using Organic Surfactant Modified Clay

Abstract

This study was carried out to find out how effective and efficient clay, modified with hexadecyltrimethylammonuim (HDTMA) can be as adsorbent, to reduced various contaminants in wastewater. Waste-water was collected from pharmaceutical industry using composite sampling. The result of both untreated and treated wastewater recorded. These were converted to percentage reduction. The results show percentage reduction of color (88.12%), total solid (61.60%), COD (87.47%), BOD (79.59%) and TKN (70.89%). While phenol, THC and level of heavy metals reduced to below detectable level (BDL). Hence, surfactant modified clay can serve as effective and efficient adsorbent to sorb both organic and inorganic contaminants from wastewater and act as vital material in environment treatment processes.

Keywords: Modified, hexadecyltrimethylaammonium bromide, surfactant adsorbent, contaminant