Arsenic (III) Removal from Contaminated Water using Low-Cost Adsorbents: A Batch Adsorption Study

Abstract

Natural materials named as waste and lime (CaO) has been used as a potential low-cost adsorbent for the removal of As (III) from contaminated water in batch studies. Results showed that Corncobs, pine cones and olive pomas didn’t effectively absorb As (III). The absorbtion capacity of lime (CaO) was 4.986 mg As (III) / g lime (CaO)/ hour, at the temperature of 20 o C and pH of 12.3. An adsorbent dose of 0.5 g could effectively remove 99.48% of As (III) from initial concentration of 50 mg L-1 within 1 h. As (III) removal depended on variations in pH and temperature. High adsorption of As (III) was observed at the pH of  12.3 at 20°C. The adsorption equilibrium data could be fit to Langmuir or Freundlich isotherms with similar accuracy. The Langmuir isotherm provided the best correlation for the adsorption of As (III) onto the lime (CaO). The maximum capacity of adsorption was 4.986 mg g -1 at 0.5g fixed adsorption dosage. The results suggest that lime (CaO) is a potential adsorbent for effective removal of As (III) ions from contaminated water.

Keywords

• Adsorption,arsenic,batch studies,contaminated water,lime (CaO)

References

1. Salim, Md., Munekage,Y.and Naing, K. M., Arsenic(III) Removal from Contaminated Water using Silica Ceramic:A Batch Adsorption Study. Journal of Applied Sciences 7 (16): (2007) 2314-2320.