Utilization of Prosopis Cineraria Leaf Ash in Removing Cadmium from Aqueous Solution

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Chemical Engineering, Petroleum University of Technology, Abadan, Iran

Abstract

In this study, the potential of Prosopis cineraria leaf ash (PCLA) as low-cost natural sorbent was
evaluated for removing cadmium from aqueous solutions. Various operational factors such as
adsorbent dosage, contact time, and solution pH were examined in batch adsorption tests. The Xray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)
analysis were employed to characterize the PCLA sample. The maximum Cd (II) removal
percentage of 96% occurred at initial pH of 7.0 and a PCLA dose of 3.0 g/L. The results
indicated the pseudo second-order kinetic model showed the best accordance as a kinetic model.
This work revealed that PCLA can be applied as effective and cheap adsorbent for cadmium
removal from wastewater.


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