Arsenic Removal from Water by Sugarcane Bagasse: An Application of Response Surface Methodology (RSM)

Abstract

Adsorption is one of the best methods for arsenic removal from water which is established in the last few decades. Biosorption by natural biosorbents and agricultural by-product is an environmental friendly approach and has proved to be a cost-effective and non-hazardous technology for the removal of heavy metals from water. This paper describes batch test findings conducted to evaluate the feasibility of using sugarcane bagasse (SCB) as an industrial by-product of sugar industry to remove arsenic (As) from water and compare the results with the efficiency of activated carbon (AC) for arsenic (As) removal. The effects of three parameters, such as pH, adsorbent dosage (Ca), and initial metal concentration (C0) on the adsorption of arsenic were evaluated by using response surface methodology (RSM). It is discovered that AC and SCB removed up to ~89 and ~98 % of arsenic, respectively. The uptake capacities yielded from the batch experiment were about 31.25 mg/g for AC at pH ~7.4 and 11.9 mg/g for SCB at pH ~9. The equilibrium times achieved were 120 and 150 min for SCB and AC, respectively. This study shows that SCB is an efficient low-cost biosorption for arsenic removal from water.