Silver Nanoparticle loaded corncob adsorbent for effluent treatment

In this paper, agricultural waste corncob has been modified by loading with silver nanoparticle to prepare an adsorbent for the treatment of wastewater and microbial inactivation. The silver nanoparticle loaded corncob was characterized by UV spectroscopy, FourierTransform Infrared (FTIR) analysis, Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrocopy (SEM-EDX), Brunauer, Emmett and Teller (BET) Surface Area analysis. The loading of 0.9 (+/- 0.05) mg/mL and 0.92% silver nanoparticle on corncob was confirmed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) and Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS). The treatment of wastewater onto silver nanoparticle loaded corncob has been studied for Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) reduction and showed a significant COD reduction of 77%, 89% and 97% for tannery, dairy and canteen effluent visa versa. The adsorption isotherm was fitted well by the Langmuir and the adsorption kinetics was well described by Pseudo-first order. The silver nanoparticle loaded corncob was potential against E. coli inactivation and the inactivation kinetics were well described by Homs model. The spent adsorbent was regenerated and used upto 3 cycles and found that the non detectable range of E. coli upto 3 cycle. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.