To investigate the efficiency of activated carbon derived from maize cobs and sugarcane bagasse for the removal of lead (ii) ions from water.

Abstract

Lignocellulosic materials are good precursors for the production of activated carbon. In this work, the low-cost activated carbons ie.,1.5g and 1.328g were prepared from Sugarcane bagasse and maize cob material respectively by chemical activation method Potassium Hydroxide as the drying agent. Thereafter, this study investigated the effectiveness of activated carbon derived from maize cobs and sugarcane bagasse as adsorbents for lead ions in wastewater. The research aimed to compare the performance of the two materials and analyze the reasons behind any variations observed in their adsorption capacities. Using 1g of each, the adsorption of Pb (II) from dilute aqueous solution with an initial concentration of 1000ppm of Pb2+ ions was tested. A mixed sample was also used. The parameters were held constant for all experiments and include physical and chemical properties of adsorbent, pH, adsorbent dose, contact time and initial concentrations. After 2 hours of contact, the water samples were analyzed for Lead using an Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. The prepared activated carbons showed substantial capacity to adsorb Pb (II) from dilute aqueous solutions as follows. The concentration of lead in SW01 was found to be 350mg/l while that of SW02 and SW03 were found to be 363 mg/l and 282 mg/l as per the SpectrAA report. Thus, due to this high uptake, the activated carbon prepared from maize cobs i.e., AC03 using this method was found to be the most efficient among the three samples as an adsorbent to remove Lead from the dilute aqueous solution under the conditions above.