Removal of TDS and BOD from Synthetic Industrial Wastewater via Adsorption Maruf Mortula + and Sina Shabani Civil Engineering Department, American University of Sharjah Abstract. The discharge limits of industrial wastewater effluents are subjected to regulations which are getting more restricted with time. The purpose of this paper is to review the process of adsorption and its effects on TDS and BOD removal of synthetic industrial wastewater prepared in the laboratory of the American University of Sharjah. Batch tests were performed using different adsorbents like limestone aggregate, activated alumina, activated carbon, and steel slag. The effect of pH as variable was studied on the most suitable adsorbent. Significant removals of TDS and BOD were observed in these experiments showing that using effective adsorbents can aid such removals to a large extent. Keywords: Adsorption, Batch test, Synthetic wastewater, TDS Removal, and BOD Removal 1. Introduction A significant growth has occurred in the industries of developing countries in the recent years. These industries discharge wastewaters which carry high concentrations of dissolved solids and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). These effluents should be treated for safe disposals which meets the regulations imposed on industrial sectors. Industrial wastewaters have high concentrations of total dissolved solids (TDS) and it has been a difficult task for engineers to remove them from industrial wastewaters (Table 1) [1]. TDS values can exceed 100000 mg/L. Other characteritics such as high values of BOD and TSS are common problems associated with industrial wastewater (Table 1). BOD values can exceed 200000 mg/L. High amounts of TDS, and BOD are associated with different types of industries such as tanning, textile, milk, cheese, yogurt, buttermilk, distillery, and etc [7-14]. Food processing industries are one of the major sectors which consume a huge amount of water for their production process [2], Such industries consist of different kinds of production like diary products, beverages, vegetables and fruits, and meat [2]. Wastewaters produced by food processing industries do not have high amount of toxic pollutants, however, they are high in concentrations of organics loading, BOD, and TDS[3]. One study examined the quality of receiving soil and water for discharged food processig wastewater in Nigeria showing there is a neccesity for treatment prior to discharge since wide range of pollutants can damage the environment significantly[4]. Existing wastewater treatment technologies often find it difficult to reduce high BOD and TSS values to meet water quality regulations. There is growing necessity for finding versatile treatment technologies to be used as a polishing unit. Adsorption is one such treatment process for different types of water [5]. Removal of organic compounds has been observed using activated carbon, activated alumina, and activated bauxite as adsorbents [5], and it is one of the technologies in treatment of different water resouces or wastewaters which has been frequently used to remove organic pollutants [6]. The objectiveof this research was to evaluate the effect of different adsorbents on coupled removal of BOD and TDS from synthetic industrial wastewater. Moreover, the effect of pH on TDS removal is studied through conducting some experiment by controlling pH value with the same amount of adrobents. + Corresponding author. Tel.: Tel.: + (971- 6 515 2648); fax: + (971- 6 515 2979). E-mail address:mmortula@aus.edu 166 2012 International Conference on Environmental, Biomedical and Biotechnology IPCBEE vol.41 (2012) © (2012) IACSIT Press, Singapore