ABSTRACT 

This study was designed to ascertain the bio-sorbent potential of plantain peels on some selected inorganic anion pollutants in brewery effluent. Four different concentrations comprising of 0 (untreated), 5, 10 and 20 mg/ml of 0, 2, 4 and 8 g of ground plantain peels dissolved in 400 ml of brewery effluent were prepared. Qualitative and quantitative determination of chloride ion (Clˉ), Nitrate ion (NO3ˉ), Phosphate ion (PO43ˉ) and Sulphate ion (SO42ˉ) on treated and untreated effluents were carried out after 1 hour, 5 hours, 10 hours, 15 hours and 20 hours using standard laboratory techniques including spectrophotometric method. Results showed that decrease in concentration of the selected anions is time and concentration dependent when both ripe and unripe plantain peels adsorbents were used but it is more significant in the unripe plantain peels. Therefore, both ripe and unripe plantain peels could serve as novel bio-sorbents waste water treatment. Analysis of inorganic anions (Cl-, NO3-, PO43-and SO42-) concentrations of untreated brewery effluent samples were within the range of 5.27mg/l – 529mg/l with nitrate ion (NO3-) recording highest and phosphate ion (PO43-) having the lowest value. After treatment, their concentrations decreased within the range of 430.07mg/l – 3.87mg/l (nitrate – phosphate respectively) for the ripe plantain and 521.40mg/l – 4.36mg/l (nitrate – phosphate respectively) for the unripe plantain. This is an indication that unripe plantain absorbed more of the inorganic anions from the water body than the ripe plantain. The Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherms were used to determine the suitability of the adsorption process. The Freundlich isotherm was the most suitable model for this sorption system and it suggested that the adsorption sites were non-uniform and non-specific in nature. The Freundlich isotherms exhibit extremely high R2 values indicating, superficially at least, that it produces a considerably better fit compared to the Langmuir isotherm