Treatment of Waste-Water from Pharmaceutics Industry Using Native Clay

Abstract

Waste – water from pharmaceutical plant was collected using composite sampling. This was characterized and treated using native clay samples collected from selected clay deposits in Edo State of Nigeria. The aim was to find out the effectiveness of clay as coagulant in waste water treatment processes. The results of the parameters studied before and after treatment, show significant reduction. For the koalinite clay, color, Total Solid (TS), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Total Kjedahl Nitrogen, Phenol and Total Hydrocarbon Count (THC) show percentage reduction of 49.51, 51.89, 73.82, 72.81, 59.24, 82.19 and 33.85 respectively. The mixed clay sample shows percentage reduction of color (35.64), TS (50.57), COD (57.86), BOD (70.70, phenol (80.22) and THC (19.46). Results from this study show that clay material can effectively be used as adsorbent as all the heavy metals were reduced to Below Detectable Level (BDL).

Keywords: Pharmaceutical, waste-water, adsorbent, reduction, composite, native, clay, below detectable level.