Author(s)

Taha Fadlou Allah¹, Kaltrina Jusuf², Ali A. Shohatee³, Liang Feng¹, Louis Trombetta³, Enju Wang^1*

¹Department of Chemistry, St. John’s University, Jamaica, New York, USA.
²Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics, University of Prishtina “Hasan Prishtina”, Prishtina, Kosovo.
³Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, St. John’s University, Jamaica, New York, USA.

Using environment-friendly and low-cost biowaste adsorbents as toxic metal ion removal substrates from aqueous solutions has a great economic advantage. This work evaluated pumpkin and potato peel biowastes for the adsorption of cadmium ions. The biowastes were treated with acid or base. Batch experiments were carried out by introducing a known concentration of metal ion solution into the biowaste sorbent at various pH levels. The pH and metal ion concentration was monitored with pH and cadmium ion-selective electrode continuously for two hours, and the final concentration for the metal ion after 24 hours was measured with the cadmium electrode and then confirmed with ICP-OES. L-type isotherms were obtained that fit to Freundlich model. Adsorption isotherms showed chemical adsorption and the kinetics following the second order model. Equilibrium adsorption capacity is higher than 29 mg/g at pH 5.6 when the initial concentration is 220 ppm. Dynamic cadmium adsorption capacity is 17 mg/g from aqueous solution when the feed solution is 220 ppm with pumpkin peel biowaste sorbent. The biowaste materials can be regenerated with acid washing.

Cadmium Ion, Biowaste Sorbent, Ion-Selective Electrode, ICP-OES

Allah, T.F., Jusuf, K., Shohatee, A.A., Feng, L., Trombetta, L. and Wang, E.J. (2023) Studies of Adsorption of Cadmium Ions by Biowaste Adsorbent from Aqueous Solutions with Ion-Selective Electrodes and ICP-OES. American Journal of Analytical Chemistry, 14, 274-286. doi: 10.4236/ajac.2023.146015.