ABSTRACT
Anionic surfactants have toxic effect on aquatic life and human. It leads to dangerous destabilization on flora and fauna and also causes skin irritation at higher concentration. Detergent degrading bacteria can be utilized for the efficient treatment of surfactant, in which immobilization of such bacteria makes the feasibility for successive reuse of the adsorbent. In this study anionic surfactant was removed using immobilized Pseudomonas aeuroginosa beads and the process was optimized by varying the parameters such as contact time (0–5 hrs), pH (2–8), initial surfactant concentration (5–25 mg/L) and adsorbent dosage (0.2–1 g/L). Optimum contact time was obtained as 4 hrs, pH as 6, initial SDS concentration as 10 mg/L and adsorbent dosage as 0.8 g/L. The maximum removal at optimized condition was observed as 91.3% and Langmuir isotherm model fit to the equilibrium adsorption data. From the kinetic study pseudo first order was found to fit well with the adsorption data. The results indicate that immobilized beads can be effectively used for the surfactant removal from aqueous solution.
