Evaluation of Chemical Parameters of Agro - Pollutant – Coir Industrial Residue

Abstract

Coir pith, an industrial residue categorized under agro-pollutant, being utilized in agriculture and bioenergy generation. This coir pith being abyproduct of the industries should be removed from the production site as its accumulation pollutes the local water body by altering its physico-chemical properties when rain water percolates it. Also, Polyphenol leaching makes it unfit for the normal landfill practices in Agriculture. Fortunately, this coir pith serves as an organic raw material for the production of biogas as it possesses high lignin and cellulose contents. In this study, the samples were drawn from a industry site which was heaped for natural decomposition for several years. The coir pith samples as a function of time - 5 years, 1 year, 6 months, raw (7 days old) were collected and analysed for the chemical parameters. It was observed that the parameters were in the descending order of Raw coir pith > 1 year >6months > 5 years which showed gradual decrease in the contents symbolizing the activity of microbes in degradation naturally; This is the time consuming process due to the presence of lignocellulosic materials, where the chances of microbial degradation using natural consortia is very tough, the alternative step to overcome this issue is by using lignin degrading microbes to bring down polluting parameters.