Remediation of Heavy Metals Using Selected Agricultural Waste: Sunflower Husk and Durian Leaves

Abstract

This study revealed the behaviour of sunflower husk (SFH) and durian leaves (DL) as an adsorbent that could treat the aqueous solution to be free of heavy metal ions. The batch method was utilized. The influence of pH, contact time and initial metal concentration were described. The impact of pH on the uptake levels of the metal particles by both selected adsorbents were delineated between pH 4 to pH11. It was observed that the best value of pH for copper and zinc removal was 8 in case of SFH and it was 9 for DL. The process tends to be rapid the initial 10 minutes for SFH and 5 minutes for DL and an equilibrium time of two hours was needed for the copper and zinc particles adsorption onto SFH and an equilibrium time of one hour was needed for the copper and zinc adsorption onto DL. The Freundlich and Langmuir isotherm models are used to decide the adsorption parameters. The Freundlich isotherm model tends to fit the equilibrium data better than Langmuir isotherm model. The outcomes demonstrated that SFH and DL hold great potential to be utilized as low cost dry biomass adsorbent in the order SFH < DL.