Abstract

STUDIES ON THE REMOVAL OF CHROMIUM (VI) USING ACTIVATED SOLANUM TRILOBATUM NANO CARBON

A. Bharathi and S. Arivoli*

ABSTRACT

Removal of heavy metals from wastewater is absolutely essential to avoid water pollution. In the present study, performance of Solanum Trilobatum activated carbon was evaluated for the removal of Cr (VI) from aqueous solution. Batch adsorption experiments were performed in order to examine the removal process under various factors like the effects of initial concentration, adsorbent dose, pH and contact time. The Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, Dubinin-Radushkevich, Hurkins- Jura, Halsey, Radlich-Peterson, Jovanovich and BET isotherm models were used for the adsorption equilibrium data and the Langmuir isotherm model was well fitted. Thermodynamic parameters were also determined and results suggest that the adsorption process is a spontaneous and endothermic. The results of kinetic models showed that the pseudo-secondorder kinetic model was found to correlate well to the experimental data. This investigation verifies the possibility of using activated carbon prepared from Solanum Trilobatum as valuable material for the removal of Cr (VI) from aqueous solution and wastewater.

Keywords: Activated Solanum Trilobatum Nano Carbon (ASTNC), Cr (VI), Adsorption, Isotherms, Temperature and Kinetic Models.