ADSORPTION OF FLUORIDE IONS ON ALUM IMPREGNATED ACTIVATED CARBONS

Abstract

Inorganic contaminants such as Fluoride is very common in ground, surface and brackish water due to weathering of rocks and other sources such as waste waters effluents from various industries. As reported the concentration of fluoride in surface water is very low i.e. and lt; 0.15-0.5 mg/l, whereas higher concentration have been reported in ground waters up to 20 mg/L. If the concentration of fluoride in drinking water exceed it may lead to dental fluorosis and bones get fragile. Surface modification of different grades of commercially available activated carbons with alum and removal of fluoride by using these modified activated carbons has been proved one of the most suitable and economically viable technologies for removal of fluoride from wastewater. In present work comparative adsorption studies of different grades of commercially available activated carbon are studied for removal of fluoride before and after alum modification, also been characterized for proximate and ultimate analysis, iodine number, N2-BET surface area and SEM.