JOURNAL OF ECOLOGICAL ENGINEERING, cilt.20, sa.10, ss.165-171, 2019 (ESCI)
In Turkey, the commercial laundry wastewater is usually discharged to the receiving water bodies and its reuse potential is ignored. This wastewater is grouped into the greywater due to their content of organic and inorganic pollutants. In recent years, the sequential processes have become more preferable in greywater treatment and reuse. In this study, a batch adsorption process was applied for further treatment of commercial laundry wastewater which is also pre-treated by means of the electrocoagulation process. In adsorption, two different composites of waste hazelnut shell derived activated carbons, which are supported with polyaniline (PAn/HS) and polypyrrole (PPy/HS), were used as adsorbents. The efficiency of the process was evaluated by means of an experimental design, and the response surface methodology was applied for this purpose. In the experiment with PAn/HS, the chemical oxygen demand (COD) 75% removal efficiency was accomplished with adsorbent dosage of 0.9 g, at pH 8, with 125 rpm mixing rate and for 77.5 min reaction time. For PPy/HS under the same experimental conditions, the COD removal efficiency was obtained as 20%. The utilization of waste hazelnut shell derived composites as adsorbents for commercial laundry wastewater treatment is a good alternative. The production costs of adsorbents were estimated as 0.70 USD/g and 3.21 USD/g for PAn/HS and PPy/HS, respectively. In terms of the production cost, the PAn/HS composite is approved more agreeable as adsorbents for commercial laundry wastewater treatment.