Investigations of solid waste biosorbents for eliminations of total hardness from water: An experimental study of conversion of waste into valuable products

Hard water is a serious problem in the village areas. Alkaline hardness can cause eye pain, respiratory tract collapse, liver difficulties, and skin concerns. Human biological hardness after the extreme exposures depends on their concentration, time, and volume absorbed. Biosorption, which occurs mostly in biomass, inertly adds and binds Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ ions to its biosorbents cellular structure. The biosorbents' cellular exterior composition and kinetic stability confirm their Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ removal capacity. The unique biological, physical, and chemical properties of each biosorbents made water hardness removal easier. The project aims to build a perfect technique to remove hardness from waste water using powerful solid waste biosorbents as pomegranate, orange, beetroot, lemon, and banana peels. Beetroot peel bio-adsorbent is one of the best biosorbents for water hardness removals from water as compared to other biosorbents in this study. After the screening processes do the optimization test on the Beetroot peel bio-adsorbent to get the optimum pH is 7.5–8, temperature is 35°C, time is 105 min, rotation speed is 120 rpm and biosorbents dosage concentration is 5.6 gm were studied. In the characterization part observed that the particle size vary from 1.28 to 8.74 μm, crystallite size vary from 2.56nm to 7.34 nm, surface areas and pore volume also vary from 24.14 to 54.68 m²/gm and 0.134–0.427cm³/gm respectively. In the SEM-EDX analysis observed that the presence of C, Si, O, K, Al, Fe and Mg elements in the biosorbents and the FTIR analysis observed that the presence of O-H stretch and H-bonded group, alkanes with C-H extend and alkynes with –C=C- extend. In the kinetics analysis observed that the R² values of 0.965 of the beetroot peels biosorbents. After the kinetics study we are also collecting the water sample from four different locations i.e. Mallavolu, Gudivada, Gudlavalleru, and Machilipatnam and it is observed that the 70–84.39 % removals of hardness from water by the using of Beetroot peels biosorbents. In the adsorption and desorption cycle observed that the maximum desorption was observed at (94.56 %) could be achieved with the same strength of nitric acid as eluant. The sorption of Ca and Mg ions on regenerated biosorbents remained constant up to three cycles (97.38 %) and then started decreasing (to 82.36 %) in the 4th cycle. After removing the hardness from water, recycling biosorbents makes the biosorption process is cheaper. Biosorption with various bioreactors can remove the hardness from large volumes of water. This trial will lay the groundwork for water hardness eradication. Optimizing settings at various conditions and using contemporary equipment might increase the removal efficacy.