Preparation Of Activated Carbon From Root And Inflorescence Of Enset/Ensete-Vetricosum/ For The Removal Of Pb (II) From Aqueous Solution

Abstract

Activated carbon has been prepared from inflorescence and root of enset/ensete- vetricosum/. This work deals with the preparation of activated carbon from inflorescence and root of enset to remove heavy metal ion of Pd(II) from aqueous solution. Chemical activation of the carbon was done by H3PO4 followed by carbonization at 300 0C for 15 min. The optimum temperature used to prepare activated carbon was 25oC for inflorescence and 30 0C for enset root.while the optimum pH 5 for inflorescence and 7 for enset root and contact time for activated carbon of inflorescence and enset root were determined as 60 and 30 min respectively. The optimum environments for adsorbents dose were determined 1.5 g and 2 g in 200 mL solution. The adsorption capacity for Pb2+ by inflorescence and root were 1.36,1.68 mg/g, respectively. Freundlich adsorption isotherm model for Pb2+ with R2 values of 0.973 ,0.978,for root and inflorescence was a better fit for the experimental adsorption equilibrium data than Langmuir model with R2 value of 0.96,,0.89 respectively. The FT-IR spectra of enset inflorescence and root activated carbon before and uptake of Pb(II) were recorded to explore the nature of the functional groups responsible for its binding onto the adsorbent. The broad and strong band at 3314 cm-1 ,2923 and 1029 was attributed to the stretching of(-OH,C-H and C-O) of Alcohol and phenols . The R2 value for pseudo-second order (0.98,0.97) in the adsorption of Pb(II) ions were higher than that of pseudo-first order (0.94,0.33) for the lead metal ion for enset inflorescence and root respectively. The kinetics data was best fitted with the pseudo-second order type. Adsorbent present in this study was prepared at laboratory scale and its efficient for Pb(II) ion from aqueous solution.