Research Article
Tajun Meera Begum KM, Alhaj
Abstract
Advantages such as environmental friendly material, low cost and high regeneration percentage of sludge-based adsorbents like Paper Mill Sludge carbon (PMSC) and Activated Paper Mill Sludge Carbon (APMSC) make them as suitable adsorbents for the removal of toxic metals such as Cr(VI) and Ni(II) ions from water and wastewater. These mesoporous carbons namely PMSC and APMSC were most effective in adsorption of cationic pollutants than anionic pollutants. Isotherms data indicated that these activated carbons have high adsorption capacity. The dimensionless factor, RL of the adsorption isotherms revealed that the adsorption process for both ions on both adsorbents was very favorable. The results suggest the feasibility of a good substitute than other commercially available activated carbons produced from natural resources. So, the reuse of organic wastes from any industrial process is a high priority today. Adsorption of Ni (II) ions and Cr (VI) ions using PMSC and APMSC was more effective at pH 5 and pH 2, respectively. Various isotherm, kinetic models and Activation parameters were fitted with experimental data to describe the behavior of diffusion mechanism, solute interaction and nature of adsorption with the adsorbents through batch studies. The best isotherm in these studies was selected by error analysis and the stability of adsorbents was also confirmed through desorption studies.