AGRICULTURAL WASTE AS LOW COST ADSORBENT FOR THE REMOVAL OF FE (II) IONS FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTION

Abstract

This study investigates the efficiency of durian leaves as a low cost agriculture waste (bio adsorbent) that could remediate aqueous solution free of Fe (II) ions. The influence of four parameters, namely pH, initial metal concentration and contact time, mixing rate and particle size of adsorbent on the performance of durian leaves have been studied in batch method at room temperature. It was found that the maximum adsorption is reached at pH 6. Moreover, the process tends to be rapid the initial 5 minutes and equilibrated in 60 minutes with uptake of more than 45%. The Freundlich and Langmuir isotherm models are used to describe the biosorption of Fe(II) ions onto durian leaves. The Langmuir model tends to fit the equilibrium data better by giving a correlation coefficient of 0.7736 and maximum adsorption capacity is found to be at 3.914 mg/g. The results obtained prove that durian leaves have great potential to be used as low cost bio adsorbent in order to remove heavy metals in wastewater.

Keywords: Agricultural Waste, Aqueous Solution, Adsorbent, Fe (II) Ions, Durian leaves, Low cost