The increasing trends in environmental pollution caused by industrial processes and activities have been a major concern. This study investigates the use of groundnut shell waste for pharmaceutical wastewater treatment. Groundnut shell was washed severally with distilled water and air-dried for 5 days. Forty grams (40.0 g) of the dried groundnut shell were carbonized at 300<sup>o</sup>C for 1 hour and activated with 0.3M phosphoric acid; it was further washed with distilled water to a pH of 7.02. The wastewater sample was analyzed before and after treatment with the groundnut shell activated carbon. Analysis carried out on the wastewater sample include pH using electrometric method, turbidity using turbidity meter, total suspended solids (TSS) using oven-dry method, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) using dissolved oxygen meter, iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) concentration using Atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The removal efficiency of physicochemical parameters, Fe and Zn were studied and a substantial reduction was observed in the results. The pH value reduces from 8.41 to 6.50, BOD value from 283.80 to 51.95 mg/L, turbidity value from 11.02 to 5.09NTU, TSS value from 36.00 to 2.80 mg/L, Fe and Zn were completely removed. This present study shows that the groundnut shell activated carbon proved effective for wastewater treatment.

Groundnut shell waste for pharmaceutical wastewater treatment

2019 Spring National Meeting

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