The use of some industrial by products for adsorptive removal of heavy metals from wastewater
Most available technologies applied in the removal of metal contaminants in aqueous systems use the well established processes of adsorption. Adsorbents currently in use are either too expensive or not readily available for wastewater treatment. There is a need to develop new adsorbents which are readily available at low cost to remove metal contaminants in aqueous system. In this work, Okra wastes as a food canning processes by products were used as a potential adsorption of cadmium (II) iron(II) and zinc(II) removal from various aqueous solutions. Qualitative and Quantitative analysis of okra wastes were investigated. Infrared spectra of the okra waste was recorded to detect the function group that gained the capabilities of okra wastes for metal ion adsorption. Batch studies were performed to evaluate the adsorption process, and it was found that the okra waste was found to adsorb 96.4% of Cadmium (II) 93.8% of iron(II) and 79.8% zinc(II), The rate of adsorption follows pseudo-second-order kinetics before attaining equilibrium. The desorption studies suggested that the desorption of Cadmium (II) iron(II) and zinc(II) was the most difficult and the desorption was zero. This work proved that okra wastes can be used as an efficient adsorbent material for removal of heavy metals from water and wastewater.