Varanasi: In a bid to clean the holy Ganga river, the researchers at the School of Biochemical Engineering of IIT-BHU have developed eco-friendly 'adsorbent' which 'can remove toxic heavy metal ions from wastewater'.
The product has been synthesised from rice husk through several modifications and it will remove toxic heavy metal ions such as hexavalent chromium from water.
The adsorbent has been synthesised by Dr Vishal Mishra and his PhD students Veer Singh and Jyoti Singh. According to the researchers, it "has been proved effective adsorption-cum-reduction of hexavalent chromium."
Speaking to ETV Bharat, Assistant Professor, Dr Vishal Kumar Mishra, said, "We have done research on water pollution. Wastewater contains a lot of heavy metals such as chromium, cranium and lead. In this research, we have doped on rice bran. From this, a unique enzyme of iron has been prepared. So that chromium reduction can occur. Chromium-6, chromium-3 retraction is found more in Unnao and Kanpur in Ganges water."
"Result of research has come out very well and it works at very low PHP. It has removed a lot of chromium from wastewater. A research paper on this research has been published in 'Research Journal of Environment Chemical Engineering'," Dr Mishra said.
Dr Mishra said, "The hexavalent chromium is responsible for several types of health problems in the human body like various types of cancers, kidney and liver failure. The research is focused on the cost-effective, eco-friendly method for removal of heavy metal ions from water. Rice husk is easily available worldwide."
"This adsorbent is effective in the removal of toxic metal ions from wastewater as compared to other conventional methods and, that too, in less time. The adsorbent is synthesised from the rice husk and its surface is modified through iron doping," PhD scholar, Veer Singh.
"We have done iron coating on paddy husk from which chromium has been removed. It has produced very good results. We found that chromium is completely removed from the paddy husk," Singh added.
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