Efficient Chromium Abstraction from Aqueous Solution Using a Low-Cost Biosorbent: Nauclea diderrichii Seed Biomass Waste
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Date
2016-01-15
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Elsevier
Abstract
Toxic Cr(III) which poses environmental hazard to flora and fauna was efficiently
abstracted by low-cost Nauclea diderrichii seed biomass (NDS) with good sequestral capacity for
this metal was investigated in this study.
The NDS surface analyses showed that it has a specific surface area of 5.36 m2/g and pHpzc of
4.90. Thermogravimetric analysis of NDS showed three consecutive weight losses from 50–200C
(ca. 5%), 200–400C (ca. 35%), >400C (ca. 10%), corresponding to external water molecules,
structural water molecules and heat induced condensation reactions respectively. Differential thermogram of NDS presented a large endothermic peak between 20–510C suggesting bond breakage
and dissociation with the ultimate release of small molecules.
The experimental data showed kinetically fast biosorption with increased initial Cr(III) concentrations, indicating the role of external mass transfer mechanism as the rate controlling mechanism
in this adsorption process. The Langmuir biosorption capacity of NDS was 483.81 mg/g. The use of
the corrected Akaike Information Criterion tool for ranking equilibrium models suggested that the
Freundlich model best described the experimental data, which is an indication of the heterogeneous
nature of the active sites on the surface of NDS.
Description
The authors acknowledge the support of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (TWAS-CAS) for providing fellowship to Martins O. Omorogie at the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, China, where this research was carried out. This work was also supported in part by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21005023, 91123003) and the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2011CB933401).
Keywords
Biomass, Equilibrium, External Mass Transfer, Kinetics, Adsorption, Water
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