The document discusses designing an adsorption column using waste tea to remove heavy metals from water. Heavy metals from industrial wastewater pollute water sources. Adsorption is an effective, low-cost method to remove heavy metals using biosorbents like waste tea. The project aims to design a column through experiments to create breakthrough curves and scale the design industrially. This could help treat wastewater from industries like textiles and tanning before release and recover valuable metals. The column may decrease heavy metal concentrations and help achieve UN sustainability goals for water and ecosystems.

1. Design of adsorption column for removal
of heavy metals using bio-waste as an adsorbent
GHULAM ISHAQ KHAN INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING SCIENCES & TECHNOLOGY
Advisor Name: Dr. Usman Farooq
Co-Advisor Name: Engr. Imran Abbas
Abdullah Shoukat, 2017021
Haseeba Noor, 2017146
Anas Zia, 2017242
Qasim Mehmood, 2017374
Department of Chemical Engineering

2. 2
Introduction:
• Heavy metals such as chromium, copper, cadmium,
lead, mercury, and nickel are extensively released
into the environment by various industrial activities
like mining, leather, paper, electroplating, and
textile industries.
• Untreated wastewater from these industries is
responsible for polluting fresh water bodies which
either leads to scarcity or affects the human
population.
• Clean water is natural resource that is becoming
scarce at many places and its unavailability is a
major social and economic concern.
Literature Review:
In last a few decades, significant improvements were made in both efficiency and economy for removal of
heavy metals and metalloid (arsenic) from water using adsorbents. Though the management of the used
adsorbent and recovery of heavy metals is one of the most important aspects, but only a limited number of
research works considered the fate of spent adsorbents before disposal.

3. 3
Importance of work/Motivation:
• Although other methods for removal of heavy metals are available, they have drawbacks:
i. Chemical precipitation technique produces a large amount of sludge.
ii. Floatation requires large initial outlays.
iii. Ion exchange causes environmental pollution during regeneration.
iv. Membrane filtration causes membrane fouling problems.
• Adsorption is preferred because of its
simplicity of operation, low cost,
eco-friendly nature, and reuse and
regeneration possibilities.
• The use of biosorbents to adsorb heavy
metals is used due to their abundant
availability in nature and their ability to
remove even minute amounts of heavy
metals in wastewater.

4. 4
Gap Analysis:
• Biosorption is a relatively new technology for water cleaning and it is yet to be
established in local industries.
• Although It has been found to be very efficient and cost effective still it is not
being used in industries in Pakistan.
• We will use waste tea as an adsorbent.
Clearly defined objective:
The aim for this project will be to use waste tea as a biosorbent and design a
system of adsorption columns by performing experiments to plot breakthrough
curves and the calculations which will be practically applicable in an industrial scale
column.

5. 5
Commercialisation possibilities &
social impact:
• Biosorption based removal of heavy metals from industry waters
offered at lesser the cost of other techniques.
• Removal of heavy metals from wastewater of textile and tanning
industries of Pakistan before it is released into the fresh water bodies.
• Recovery and re-use of expensive heavy metals from various industrial
wastewaters.
• The World Health Organization sets the standard permissible level of
toxins in water at 0.05 ppm. While, levels of over 2 ppm have been
recorded in Kasur.
• Aiming for UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 3- Good health and well-being
SDG 6 - Clean water and sanitation
SDG 14- life below water

6. 6
Execution Plan in terms of Gantt
Chart:
Expected Outcomes:
Design of an adsorption column using waste tea as an adsorbent and a control loop
which will decrease the concentration of heavy metals in a sample of water.
Experimentation (8 weeks)
Breakthrough curves and Model fitting (2 weeks)
Upscaling calculations (2 weeks)
Fabrication (3 weeks)

7. 7
Reference (5-7, 2015 onwards):
• Application of biosorption for removal of heavy metals from wastewater. (2018, July 18). Intechopen.com.
https://www.intechopen.com/books/biosorption/application-of-biosorption-for-removal-of-heavy-metals-from-wastewater
• Arbabi, M., Hemati, S., & Amiri, M. (2015). Removal of lead ions from industrial wastewater: A review of removal methods.
International Journal of Epidemiologic Research, 2(2), 105–109.
http://ijer.skums.ac.ir/article_11812_9b89af683a567da8c6e9b9b85c124cb4.pdf
• Gupta, S. (2020, April). Removal of lead from aqueous solution using bagasse and bagasse fly ash as adsorbents. International Journal of
Global Science Research. https://doi.org/10.26540/ijgsr.v7.i1.2020.144
• Studies on removal of methylene blue dye from aqueous solution by adsorption using low cost adsorbent. (2016). Knowledge of
Research, 20–23. https://doi.org/10.7598/kor2016.28
• Gebretsadik, H., Gebrekidan, A., Demlie, L., & Suvarapu, L. N. (2020). Removal of heavy metals from aqueous solutions using
eucalyptus camaldulensis: An alternate low cost adsorbent. Cogent Chemistry, 6(1), 1720892.
https://doi.org/10.1080/23312009.2020.1720892
• Nur-E-Alam, M., Mia, M. A. S., Ahmad, F., & Rahman, M. M. (2018, July 31). Adsorption of chromium (cr) from tannery
wastewater using low-cost spent tea leaves adsorbent. Applied Water Science.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13201-018-0774-y?error=cookies_not_supported&code=8a6dcbd0-42eb-4725-
9420-bbb17d8ee4a3