Potential of Oil-free-Cake Dry Seed Kernels of Desert Date (Balanites aegyptiacus (L.) Delile) for simultaneous Removal of Pb (II), Cu (II) and Cd (II) ions from Battery Industry Effluent

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate the potential of oil-free-cake dry seed kernels of desert date (Balanites aegyptiacus (L.) Delile) for simultaneous removal of Pb (II), Cu (II) and Cd (II) ions from Battery Industry Effluent using standard methods in a batch sorption process.. The battery effluent was mimicked by dissolving known concentration of metal ions in distilled water. The optimum conditions for the simultaneous removal of Pb (II), Cu (II) and Cd (II) ions were: pH (6), contact time (105 min) and adsorbent dosage (6.5 g). The results obtained showed that the biosorbent was effective for the simultaneous removal of Pb (II), Cu (II) and Cd (II) ions with removal efficiencies of up to 87.7%, 78.6% and 61.6% respectively. The consistency of the model-predicted optimum conditions were confirmed by conducting experiments under those conditions. It was found that the experimental removal efficiencies under optimum conditions were very close (less than a 5% error) to the model-predicted value. The three parameter isotherm equations (Redlich-Peterson and Sips) provide better fitting than the two-parameter isotherm equations (Freundlich and Langmuir), which can be explained by the fact that these have three adjustable parameters. The best fitted was achieved with the Redlich–Peterson equation. The results of the sorption kinetic study showed that the data fitted well with the pseudo-second order model for Pb (II), Cu (II) and Cd (II) ions. In conclusion, desert date oil-free cake exhibits great potential as an efficient sorbent for removal of metal ions.