Adsorption of phosphates from agricultural wastewater using fish scales and Hami‐melon peels

Abstract Water pollution is one of the most serious environmental issues facing the world, including India. The present study mainly focuses on removal of major pollutant from agriculture wastewater that is responsible for eutrophication in water, that is, phosphates. Fish scales and Hami‐melon peels were used as adsorbents in this investigation. Numerous studies are carried out for how effective adsorbents are at removing the pollutant phosphate. Equilibrium studies, thermodynamic studies, kinetic studies, and isotherm studies are all variations of these types of investigations. According to investigations, both the adsorbents of 0.2% concentration at 165 rpm with pH 6 and a constant temperature of 30°C can successfully remove 95%–97% of phosphate. The initial concentration of the pollutant was also varied from 30 to 70 ppm and the pH is varied from 3 to 9 which showed the maximum adsorption occurred in the range of 5–7. Additionally, contact time varied at an intervals of 10 min to determine the optimum contact time and was found to be 140 min. The uptake capacities 24.15 mg/g for fish scales as adsorbent whereas 23.94 mg/g for Hami melon peels as adsorbent. The isotherm studies showed that Langmuir isotherm fits well where second order kinetics is suited based on kinetic studies. The thermodynamic studies showed that fish scales and Hami melon peels are suitable to remove phosphates since the adsorption occurred is spontaneous and the reaction is endothermic in nature.