Nanoparticle Mediated Treatment of Dairy Wastewater

College of Engineering Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, National University of Science & technology, Oman

^* Corresponding author: geethadevi@nu.edu.om

Abstract

Nanotechnology is one of the emerging areas of scientific interest with numerous applications. In this research, surface modified silicon dioxide nanoparticules have been developed from low molecular weight chitosan by dip-coating technique for the batch treatment of dairy wastewater. The processing parameters of wastewater pH, mixing duration, agitation speed and quantity of nanoparticles are varied, and the treatment efficiency was established by measuring the total dissolved solids (TDS), turbidity, chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids (TSS), and dissolved oxygen (DO). Dynamic light scattering (DLS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-Ray analysis (EDX), and fourier transform infrared spectrocopy (FTIR) are employed as characterization techniques. The DLS analysis showed the average diameter of the nanoparticles as 320 nm and the EDX analysis confirmed the elemental composition of the silicon dioxide nanoparticles. The functional groups are identified by FTIR. The optimum values for the best treatment conditions are established as pH 3.0, 60 minutes contact time, 100 rpm agitation speed and a nanoparticle dosage of 0.6 g. The batch expérimental study démontrâtes that the surface modified silicon dioxide nanoparticles could efficiently remove the polluants from the dairy wastewater in an environmentally friendly and cost effective method.