Removal of lead (II) from metal plating effluents using sludge based activated carbon as adsorbent.

: A novel adsorbent was prepared from waste sludge obtained from a sugar mill for removing heavy metals from industrial wastewater. The adsorption studies were carried out in batch and continuous modes for both sugar mill sludge based carbon and commercial carbon. In batch studies, experiments were conducted at ambient temperature to assess the influence of the parameters such as pH, adsorbent dose, contact time and equilibrium concentration. Adsorption data for the prepared carbon was found to satisfy both the Freundlich and Langmuir isotherms. Column studies were carried out to delineate the effect of varying depth of carbon at constant flow rate. The breakthrough curves were drawn to establish the mechanism. The result shows that the sludge based activated carbon can be used as an alternative for commercial carbon.