Abstract:
In the past few years, the research on the endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs)
has been increased with great interest in the area of environmental science and technology
owing to the reason that these chemicals (EDCs) have various properties such as
estrogenic, antiestrogenic or antiandrogenic and hence their existence leads to the potential
damage the endocrine systems of human beings and wildlife.
One of the ECDs such as Bisphenol A [2, 2-bis (4- hydroxyphenyl) propane] or
BPA is of the important concern due its adverse potentiality to the human health and
environment. BPA is mainly used in the manufacturing of resins and polycarbonate
plastics. There is chance of entering the BPA into water bodies while manufacturing
plastic products, leaching from plastic products, disposed at the landfill sites, and many
routes. Thus it causes contaminating the various sources of water such as ground water,
surface water, etc. and poses danger to fecundity and reproductive health of human beings
and aquatic animals.
The present work deals with optimization of various process variables for the
removal of BPA from aqueous solutions by cheaply available adsorbent such as Bagasse
Fly Ash (BFA) using Response Surface Methodology based Central Composite Design
(CCD). The process variables such as BFA dose (w), time of contact (t), initial pH of BPA
solution, temperature (T) were varied at five levels to examine the effects on the
adsorption of BPA onto BFA and the results were analyzed by Sequential model sum of
squares and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The optimum conditions for the removal of
BPA were found to be pH = 5.8, adsorbent dose = 17.5 g/l, contact time = 270 min,
temperature = 400C. The characterization was done to determine the physicochemical
properties, textural properties of BFA. Equilibrium isotherms for BPA-BFA system were
studied by Langmuir, Freundlich, Redlich-Peterson, Hill, Sips, Tempkin, Toth isotherm
models using a non-linear regression method.
