Shrimp Pond Wastewater Treatment Using Pyrolyzed Chicken Feather as Adsorbent.

In this study, chicken feather fiber was used as a raw material to prepare a non-expensive adsorbent by pyrolysis without chemical activation. The main pollutants treated in this study were chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammoniacal nitrogen (NH₃-N) from shrimp pond wastewater containing high concentrations of nutrients, which caused the eutrophication phenomenon in adjacent water. Batch adsorption studies were performed to investigate the effect of pH (5-8), mass of adsorbent (0.5-3 g), and shaking time (0.5-2 h) on the removal efficiency of COD and NH₃-N. Experimental results showed that the optimum conditions were as follows: pH 5, 0.5 g of adsorbent, and 0.5 h of shaking. Under these conditions, 34.01% and 40.47% of COD and NH₃-N were removed, respectively, from shrimp pond wastewater. The adsorption processes were best described by the Langmuir isotherm model for COD and NH₃-N removal, with maximum monolayer adsorption capacity of 36.9 and 7.24 mg/g for COD and NH₃-N, respectively. The results proved that chicken feather could remove COD and NH₃-N from shrimp pond wastewater. However, further studies on thermal treatment should be carried out to increase the removal efficiency of pyrolyzed chicken feather fiber. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]