Swelling of starch – based super absorbents in water, Saline water and effluent water of CEPT

Abstract

Starch graft super absorbents were prepared by graft co polymerization with poly acrylonitrile (PAN). A fundamental relationship exists between the swelling of a polymer in a solvent and the natures of the polymer and the solvent. The swelling properties of this absorbent studies with different type of waters (DM, Tape), saline water (sea water) and effluent collected at different common effluent treatment plant (CEPT) of Ahmedabad. As expected the absorbent shows large variation in swelling capacity with different samples of liquids. We have also studied the performance of this polymer as absorbent on different effluents. As a part of our work we analyzed the polymer for its impact on COD, pH, TDS, TSS, Color of effluent samples. We have studied the effect of different dosage of polymer on its performance with effluents. The work has been carried out as a part of ME dissertation work at ATIRA. For this study, we have taken sample of effluent from three different CEPTs of Ahmedabad: Odhav Green Gujrat Verapi Mahamandal and Odhav Environment Pvt. Ltd.

Swelling at equilibrium has been used extensively to study performance of absorbent with water, saline water and other solvent / liquids, but relatively very little work has been done on obtaining swelling with chemical effluents.

The work has been carried out under dissertation work of M. E. Programme at Ahmedabad Textile Industries Research Association (ATIRA), Ahmedabad. We have carried out this work to access the possibility of application of super absorbent polymer as effluent treatment polymer. The paper will discuss some important practical considerations to improve the water absorbing performance of the polymer produced.