An insight into the utilization of high-sulfur green Saudi Arabian petcoke as an ecofriendly sorbent for enhanced simultaneous sequestration of heavy metal ions from industrial wastewaters

Abstract

Developing effective and green sorbents for the sequestration of water pollutants has increased attention to safe and sustainable water generation. This study aimed to discover a new utilization and the ability of green, high-sulfur Saudi Arabian petcoke (SA-PET) for heavy metal ion uptake. The organic sulfur content and aromatic properties of SA-PET allowed for rapid and improved performance against various metal ions via strong complex formation reactions and cation-π interactions. Also, the effects of different analytical factors were carefully studied and optimized. At pH 6–7, the maximum recovery values of PbII, CuII, CdII, ZnII, MnII, NiII and CoII metal ions were 21.09–95.76%. The experimental results demonstrate single-layer adsorption at the binding sites on the petcoke’s surface, and they are in good agreement with the Langmuir model in explaining the adsorption process, which is driven by electrostatic interactions between the petcoke surface and the studied metal ions. The pseudo-second-order kinetics model fits the adsorption data for all the target metal ions well. Furthermore, the outstanding SA-PET's stability allowed for efficient extractions over the course of 10 successive runs with negligible loss in the metal recovery percentage. With extraction recoveries up to 96.6% and a relative standard deviation less than 5%, SA-PET's efficiency in removing the target metal ions from different industrial wastewater samples gives it excellent promise as a novel green sorbent for detoxifying heavy metals from aquatic life. In conclusions, our findings, SA-PET emerged as a viable substitute for traditional synthetic adsorbents of heavy metals, in keeping with the growing trend toward green adsorbents for more sustainable development.