Accepted Papers - 3.pdf - UNESCO

National Seminar on Rainwater Harvesting and Water Management 11-12 Nov. 2006, Nagpur
72. Physico-Chemical Investigation of Waste Water from Electroplating
Industry at Agra and Technologies for Metal Removal
and Recovery of Water
Introduction
Present era of industrialization and
development also brings some fall backs, which
needs immediate attention to overcome their effects
on living beings and the ecosystems. One of these
is release of toxic metals bearing industrial effluents
which has become a primary challenge for last few
decades(Dahiya et al, 2003).These metals can be
introduced in to aquatic system through effluent
discharges from various industrial operations
including mining, chemical manufacture and
electroplating (Gupta et al., 2001) and their
increased concentration in aqueous environment
is capable of causing phytotoxicity,
*Monika Singh *Susan Verghese
Abstract
Industrialization and urbanization have led to discharge of industrial effluents, which
in turn pollute the ecosystem. The disposal of effluents has become a serious technoeconomic
problem particularly due to rising cost of disposal and growing awareness of
pollution hazards. Out of all waste water discharges, effluents from industries such as
electroplating, textiles, oil paints etc pose a threat as these waste water are usually dumped
into natural water resources like river, lakes and make the same unfit for human, plant and
animal consumption as well as for industrial use.
The present paper focuses on the waste water management of effluents from
electroplating industry which is a great water consumer and as a consequence, one of the
biggest producers of liquid effluent. This industry presents one of the most critical industrial
waste problems. Paper deals with the analysis of waste water quality from electroplating
units of Agra city , by determining parameters such as pH by digital pH meter, BOD by
titration method and COD by dichromate reflux method. Heavy metal analysis was done
on an Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (Perkin- Elmer A. Analyst 100). Analysis was done
for a period of one year and highest BOD (118 ppm), COD(424 ppm), certain toxic metals
Ni (27 ppm ) and (24 ppm) concentrations clearly indicate towards the seriousness and
immediate action towards developing methods for reclaiming metals from plating waste
stream. The paper also discusses different membrane technology for recovery of water
and different natural and cheap adsorbents for removal of toxic heavy metals.
bioconcentration and biomagnification by
organisms (Joshi, 2000).
In India there are over 50,000 large, medium
and small electroplating units mostly scattered in
the urban areas (Upadhyay, et al. 1992). Plating
waste water contains heavy metal, oil, grease and
suspended solids at levels that might be considered
hazardous to the environment and could pose risk
to public health. Because of the high toxicity and
corrosiveness of plating waste streams, plating
facilities are required to pretreat waste water prior
to discharge in accordance with national pollutant
discharge elimination system (NPDES) permits as
required by clean water act (CWA).
*School of Chemical Sciences, Department of Chemistry, St John’s College, Agra, India
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