Author(s)

Lovell Agwaramgbo, Nancy Magee, ShaKayla Nunez, Kayla Mitt

Chemistry Department, School of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, Dillard University, New Orleans, USA..

Lead, a heavy metal, is a well known contaminant in water and has been reported to cause serious health implications to humans, animals, and plants. One of the processes for heavy metal remediation of contaminated water is chemical precipitation. In this present work, chemical precipitation of lead from a contaminated aqueous matrix by chlorides, carbonates, and sulfates of sodium and calcium was compared to lead removal by molecular sieves and biomaterials (fishbone, grape and spinach). The order of lead removal from 1400 ppm of lead solution is sodium chloride (31%) < calcium chloride (62%) < burnt grape (83%) < charred spinach (92.3%) < sodium phosphate (95.8%) < sodium carbonate (97%) < molecular sieve sphere (98.7%) < sodium sulfate (99.3%) < calcium sulfate (99.7%) < molecular sieves ground (99.71%) < fishbone (99.87%) < calcium carbonate (99.9%).

Heavy Metals; Chemisorption; Biochar; Fishbone; Molecular Sieves; Bioremediation; Precipitation

L. Agwaramgbo, N. Magee, S. Nunez and K. Mitt, "Biosorption and Chemical Precipitation of Lead Using Biomaterials, Molecular Sieves, and Chlorides, Carbonates, and Sulfates of Na & Ca," Journal of Environmental Protection, Vol. 4 No. 11, 2013, pp. 1251-1257. doi: 10.4236/jep.2013.411145.