The removal of iron from synthetic water by the applications of plants leaf biosorbents

Abstract

The toxic metals present in drinking water pose a threat to the human health. The huge populations are effected to poisonous metals mainly by the water uses. Iron is a heavy metal and found in the earth crust. The presence of iron in water might be recognized to the mixing of rocks and minerals, acid mine drainage, landfill leachate or industries waste discharges. Excessive iron ingestion can lead to an illness known as hemochromatosis. This can be the reason for liver, heart failure as well as diabetes and vomiting and skin aging etc, so that it is necessary to remove iron from water. Bio-sorption is eco-friendly method for treatment of waste water. These methods have certain advantages such as lower cost, easily available and reused. The plant leaf biosorbents have different biosorption capacities, which varied within each taxonomic group and depend on their physical and/or chemical pre-treatment as well as the operational conditions. In these research work, six locally available plant leaf biosorbents i.e. neam leaf, javapalm leaf, guava leaf, sapota leaf, custard apple leaf and mango leaf biosorbents are uses. The mango leaf and guava leaf biosorbents show that the best performance for iron removal from water. Then the optimizations are done in the various parameters like pH, contact time, biosorbent dosages, temperature and rotation speed over mango leaf biosorbents for further improvement in their performances for iron adsorption. This procedure can be made cost-effective by regenerating and reapplication of plant leaf biosorbents after removing the iron from water.