Author(s)

Vithushana Thangarajah¹, W. M. Yalini Hansika Wijesundara³, A. H. M. Lihini Nilma Kumari², M. G. Gayan Sasanka Nirodha Thilakarathna^4*

¹Department of Aquaculture and Fisheries, Faculty of Livestock Fisheries & Nutrition, Wayamba University of Sri Lanka, Makadura, Gonawila (NWP), Sri Lanka.
²Environmental Science Degree Programme, Faculty of Science, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.
³Department of Chemistry, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA.
⁴Postgraduate Institute of Science, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

The global burden of heavy metal environmental pollution remains one of the most challenging issues to be addressed urgently. Lead (Pb) has been well recognized as a toxic environmental pollutant. The main objective of this study was to examine the adsorption efficiency of phosphoric activated coconut coir activated carbon for lead (II) removal from an aqueous solution. Synthesized activated carbon was characterized before and after the adsorption of Pb(II) by powder X-Ray diffraction, Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-Ray. Furthermore, the removal efficiency of Pb(II) of synthesized activated carbon was tested with different concentrations of Pb(II) solutions, pH levels, adsorbent dosages, and contact time. Atomic absorption spectroscopy was used to analyze the Pb(II) concentrations in water samples. The maximum Pb(II) removal percentage of 100% was obtained with 50 mL of 5 mg/L Pd(II) ion solution and 0.20 g of the synthesized activated carbon. Adsorption data were well fitted with the Freundlich adsorption isotherm model, and adsorption kinetics were fitted with the pseudo-second-order kinetic model with R² of 0.99. These results conclude that the synthesized activated carbon can be used as a potential sorbent for the removal of lead from wastewaters.

Activated Carbon, Adsorption, Lead Removal, Coconut Coir

Thangarajah, V. , Wijesundara, W. , Kumari, A. and Thilakarathna, M. (2020) Aqueous Lead Removal under Optimized Conditions Using Phosphoric Acid Activated Coconut Coir Activated Carbon. American Journal of Analytical Chemistry, 11, 389-405. doi: 10.4236/ajac.2020.1112031.