Sorption of copper (II) from aqueous solution onto Arachis hypogaea husk

Abstract

Copper (II) is known to be one of heavy metals most toxic to living organisms and more widespread contaminants of the environment. It has a diverse usage in the field of electroplating, alloy making, electrical wiring, etc. Copper has been reported to be a pollutant and its concentration in the range from 1 to 100 mg/L can lead to harmful effects to the ecosystem. This work deals with the application of sorption, as an effective technique for the removal of copper from aqueous waste especially in a continuous manner. The batch experiments were performed to fetch the optimized parameters which were in agreement with the previous results by various researchers. In batch study, at optimum adsorption condition, the highest adsorption capacity of 14.3 mg/g was obtained in absence of metal ions as compared to 9.2 mg/g with real wastewater. Moreover, the effect of competitive ions on copper adsorption was studied. The column studies were carried out with the study of different parameters namely flow rate, bed height, initial concentration of the aqueous copper solution. The performance of column was also studied for copper adsorption in the presence of multi-metal ions. This work provides an insight for the design of a packed bed column for copper removal which includes mass transfer calculation. Desorption studies have also been explored using various solutions like hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, oxalic acid, sodium hydroxide of varying concentrations.