Abstract

Heavy metal pollution, such as lead, can cause contamination of water resources and harm human life. Many techniques have been explored and utilized to overcome this problem, with adsorption technology being the most common strategies for water treatment. In this study, carbon nanofibers, polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/sago lignin (SL) carbon nanofibers (PAN/SL CNF) and PAN/SL activated carbon nanofibers (PAN/SL ACNF), with a diameter approximately 300 nm, were produced by electrospinning blends of polyacrylonitrile and sago lignin followed by thermal and acid treatments and used as adsorbents for the removal of Pb(II) ions from aqueous solutions. The incorporation of biodegradable and renewable SL in PAN/SL blends fibers produces the CNF with a smaller diameter than PAN only but preserves the structure of CNF. The adsorption of Pb(II) ions on PAN/SL ACNF was three times higher than that of PAN/SL CNF. The enhanced removal was due to the nitric acid treatment that resulted in the formation of surface oxygenated functional groups that promoted the Pb(II) ions adsorption. The best-suited adsorption conditions that gave the highest percentage removal of 67%, with an adsorption capacity of 524 mg/g, were 40 mg of adsorbent dosage, 125 ppm of Pb(II) solution, pH 5, and a contact time of 240 min. The adsorption data fitted the Langmuir isotherm and the pseudo-second-order kinetic models, indicating that the adsorption is a monolayer, and is governed by the availability of the adsorption sites. With the adsorption capacity of 588 mg/g, determined via the Langmuir isotherm model, the study demonstrated the potential of PAN/SL ACNFs as the adsorbent for the removal of Pb(II) ions from aqueous solution.

Highlights

  • Heavy metals can contribute to environmental problems, which could have an impact on humans due to its toxicity

  • The experimental qe is comparable to that of the calculated qe of the pseudo-second-order model. These results show that the kinetics of Pb(II) adsorption onto PAN/sago lignin (SL)

  • PAN/SL activated CNF (ACNF) were successfully prepared by incorporating sago lignin into PAN

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Summary

Introduction

Heavy metals can contribute to environmental problems, which could have an impact on humans due to its toxicity. The heavy metal pollution could bring an implication to the aquatic life bodies, natural water bodies, and possibly get trapped in the soil through bioaccumulation [1]. Its high solubility in the aquatic environment allows it to be absorbed by living organisms, and large concentrations of heavy metals might accumulate in the human body once they enter our food chain and caused severe health disorders [2]. Lead has been utilized as industrial raw materials for battery manufacturing, printing, pigments, fuels, photographic documents, and dyeing [3]. Lead is a metal which is considered the highest of the environmental concerns [4,5]. A few methods have been developed for the removal of lead from wastewater such as electrochemical treatment, ion exchange, coagulation, reverse osmosis, Molecules 2020, 25, 3081; doi:10.3390/molecules25133081 www.mdpi.com/journal/molecules

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