The effect of the rapid industrialization created an enormous burden on the part of the environment. The quality of the water source is drastically affected by the discharged coming from the industry and domestics usage. Nowadays, the treatment of wastewater involves the use of chemicals and powder activated carbon made from agricultural waste is commonly used. This study used waste corn cobs activated with sodium chloride in a 1:2.5 ratio and utilized microwave. The percent adsorption for powder activated carbon (PAC) from corn cob with microwave heating reached 93% removal of oil and grease for 10 g dosage while 87 % for powder activated carbon without microwave heating. Freundlich and Langmuir isotherms both represent the behavior of PAC and the breakthrough time decreased as flow rate of contaminant increased in the continuous flow system. The characteristics of powder activated corn cobs contained a lot of grooves, crevices and cracks and the macropores deep inside the surface was highly developed, typical for an activated carbon that facilitate effective adsorption process. The pore volume was found to be 1.3 cm3/g for PAC with microwave heating and 1.5 cm3/g for those without microwave heating. The pore volume determined the adsorption capacity of PAC from corn cobs.
