Abstract
This work aims to evaluate the effectiveness of fly ash based geopolymer powder as an adsorbent for heavy metals in aqueous solution. The structure of synthesized geopolymer was found to be highly amorphous due to the dissolution of fly ash phase. Moreover, the fly ash geopolymer powder has higher surface area compares to original fly ash with specific surface area of 85.01 m²/g and 0.83 m2/g, respectively. For this reason, the geopolymer powder has much higher removal efficiency compared to the original fly ash powder. The removal efficiency was affected by contact time, geopolymer amount, heavy metal initial concentration, pH, and temperature. The four heavy metals were chosen (Pb2+, Cu2+, Ni2+, Cd2+) for adsorption test. The highest heavy metal removal capacity was obtained at pH 5. The geopolymer powder adsorbed metal cations in the order of Pb2+>Cu2+>Cd2+>Ni2+. In addition, Langmuir model is more suitable for fly ash geopolymer powder adsorption of heavy metal ions in aqueous solution than Freundlich model. The results showed that the fly ash geopolymer powder has high efficiency for removal metal which could be employed excellent alternative for wastewater treatment.
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