THE APPLICATION OF WHEAT BRAN FOR THE REMOVAL OF COPPER IONS FROM POLLUTED WATER

Abstract

The purpose of the study underlying the present paper was to determine the adsorption of copper ions which happens to be one of the most important toxic heavy metals in the environment; for that purpose a test was carried out under laboratory conditions using wheat bran as adsorbent. The object of the test was to examine the effect of solution pH, contact time, adsorbent dose and initial copper ions concentration (2 mg/L to 20 mg/L) on adsorption yield and uptake. Three masses of wheat bran (0.5 g, 1.0 g and 2.0 g) were used for this experiment. 1.0 g of wheat bran gave a maximum adsorption efficiency at pH 5.0. At this pH, the adsorption efficiency for initial copper ions concentration of 5 mg/L was found to be 65.8% at room temperature for a contact time of 60 min. The adsorption of copper ions slowly reached equilibrium at 30 mins. With an adsorbent dose of 0.5 g of wheat bran, a maximum uptake of 0.277 mg/g of copper ions was recorded. With increasing mass of adsorbent dose from 0.5 g to 2.0 g. the adsorption uptake of copper ions decreased from 0.273 mg/g to 0.087 mg/g The highest removal efficiency of copper ions was found to be at a metal concentration of 5 mg/L. With the metal concentration increasing the adsorption of copper ions by 0.5 g of wheat bran decreased from 52.0% to 39.9%.