"BIOSORPTION OF COPPER (II) ON TO THE WASTE LEAVES OF KAFAL (Myrica esculenta) "

Abstract

The commonly used removal processes for heavy metals from contaminated wastewater and cited in the literature are chemical precipitation, electrowinning, carbon adsorption, reverse osmosis, preconcentrations, biosorption, phytoremediation etc. Among these, biosorption is comparatively efficient, low cost, economical and reliable process. Actually, the reliability of the process is depending on the choice of local biosorbents and their abundant availability. The waste plant leaves of Kafal were collected from the region of Kumaun hills of India. The paper explains that the Kafal leaf powder is a good biosorbent for the removal of Cu (II) ions from contaminated wastewater under batch study. The experimental data indicate that high removal efficiency is obtained at optimized conditions viz. higher pH, lower metal ion concentrations, moderate higher temperatures and higher dosage of biosorbents. The biosorption efficiency is recorded 88.98% at pH 6, 48.99% at contact time 70 minutes and 40.01 % at a higher dosage of biosorbent. The regression value is indicating that the order for all used isotherms model is Langmuir> Freundlich > Temkin.