Browsing by Author "Shruthi, Surendran, K"

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    Optimization of Fluoride removal for potable water by Microalgal Biosorption
    (2015-12-26T06:17:41Z) Sherin, John; Shilpa, S; Shruthi, Surendran, K; Veena, Vinod
    Water sustains life on earth. Humans utilize water for all purposes be it domestic, commercial or industrial. But the same water can affect human, animal, plant and environment when it comes with contaminants. The two most infamous ones are heavy metals and fluoride. Fluoride contamination is felt over in 24 countries around the world. And in India it is endemic affecting more than 62 million people in various states. Karnataka has 30-50% districts affected. Making dental and skeletal fluorosis common in India. Many effective systems are available in the market ready for installation. But most of them come with disadvantages like high treatment time, high reagents and chemicals cost, high installation and operational cost, chances of secondary pollution etc. An innovation in the field of biotechnology is emerging as the answer. Biosorption - Utilization of biological materials as agents for physio-chemical processes like adsorption, absorption, ion exchange, surface complexation etc. There is very scanty research in the field of Biosorption and microalgae a potential biosorbent has not been explored much. In the present study Microalgae was obtained from various freshwater sources and used as a biosorbent. Its large surface to volume ratio, rapid kinetics etc. help to bring about an effective removal of fluoride. The microalgae were characterized morphologically and by Scanning electron microscope. The project also made use of statistical tools like Response surface methodology to optimize the process. Factors considered were pH, contact time, sorbent dosage, and agitation within a range. RSM trials resulted in reduction of fluoride from 2mg/l to 0.55mg/l at 7pH 3 days, dosage 1.75ml & 150rpm. The optimized process was validated using ANN-Artificial neural network. Biosorption systems minimize or takes away the problems associated with conventional sources to a large extent. To confirm the Biosorption by microalgae samples were subjected to Energy dispersive X-ray analysis. And there is still large scope for improvement since very few biological materials have been studied, for example many microalgal species are yet to be discovered. This leaves large research opportunities in this emerging field. Same process can be duplicated for heavy metals too. Also the integration of such a process into a removal system is also possible.