Apple peels as a potential adsorbent for removal of Cu and Cr from wastewater

Solid waste management (SWM) is one of the biggest concerns of society and agricultural waste is generated in vast amount. In this study removal of Cu and Cr from wastewater using chemically modified apple peels was studied by following batch sorption experiments. Effects of metal concentration, adsorbent dose, pH, temperature and contact duration on the adsorption of Cu & Cr were investigated by using atomic adsorption spectrophotometer (AAS). SEM & EDX analysis of the adsorbents were recorded to study the morphology of the prepared adsorbents. Qmax value of apple peels is 25 for Cr & 22 for Cu, while for apple peel charcoal it is 33 for Cr & 47 for Cu, for treated apple peels Qmax is 50 for Cr & 52 for Cu adsorption. The data was processed using pseudo first, second order kinetic and intraparticle diffusion. Results depicted that the calculated adsorption capacities (qecal) were found to be close to the experimental values (qecal) by following pseudo-second order kinetics. The applicability of the Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherms was tested. Results showed that Langmuir model is best fitted on adsorption data because regression factor R2 values are good for Langmuir model.