Adsorption characteristics of Cu and Ni on Irish peat moss

• Published in: Journal of environmental management 2009-02, Vol.90 (2), p.954-960
• Main Authors: Sen Gupta, B., Curran, M., Hasan, Shameem, Ghosh, T.K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: active sites; Adsorption; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Applied ecology; Aqueous solutions; Biological and medical sciences; Breakthrough curve; Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife; copper; Copper - chemistry; desorption; EDTA (chelating agent); Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Heavy metal content; heavy metals; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; Isotherms; mosses and liverworts; nickel; Nickel - chemistry; Northern Ireland; peat; Peat moss; Soil; Studies; Water pollution; Water treatment
• ISSN: 0301-4797; 1095-8630
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2008.02.012

Peat has been widely used as a low cost adsorbent to remove a variety of materials including organic compounds and heavy metals from water. Various functional groups in lignin allow such compounds to bind on active sites of peat. The adsorption of Cu 2+ and Ni 2+ from aqueous solutions on Irish peat moss was studied both as a pure ion and from their binary mixtures under both equilibrium and dynamic conditions in the concentration range of 5–100 mg/L. The pH of the solutions containing either Cu 2+ or Ni 2+ was varied over a range of 2–8. The adsorption of Cu 2+ and Ni +2 on peat was found to be pH dependent. The adsorption data could be fitted to a two-site Langmuir adsorption isotherm and the maximum adsorption capacity of peat was determined to be 17.6 mg/g for Cu 2+ and 14.5 mg/g for Ni 2+ at 298 K when the initial concentration for both Cu 2+ and Ni 2+ was 100 mg/L, and the pH of the solution was 4.0 and 4.5, respectively. Column studies were conducted to generate breakthrough data for both pure component and binary mixtures of copper and nickel. Desorption experiments showed that 2 mM EDTA solution could be used to remove all of the adsorbed copper and nickel from the bed.