Removal of Lead (II) by Lumbang, Aleurites Moluccana Activated Carbon Carboxymethylcellulose Composite Crosslinked with Epichlorohydrin

Removal of Pb(II) using lumbang activated carbon carboxymethylcellulose composite crosslinked with epichlorohydrin was investigated. Batch adsorption studies were performed to evaluate the effects of pH, contact time, temperature, adsorbent dose, and metal concentration. To characterize the adsorbent, proximate analysis, bulk density, DSC, FT-IR, and SEM analysis were performed. Results of FT-IR revealed that crosslinking did not alter the structure of carboxymethylcellulose due to the presence of the -COO functional groups, while the presence of the C-O signal indicates that the adsorbent was successfully crosslinked by epichlorohydrin. Furthermore, SEM results showed highly porous nature of the prepared adsorbent. The optimized parameters of the adsorbent were pH 3, contact time of 15 min. 30 degrees C temperature, adsorbent dose of 4 g/L at 5 ppm Pb (II) solution. With these optimized parameters, 73% removal of Pb (II) was attained in aqueous solutions, while 37% removal was observed in the wastewater sample. Moreover, the adsorption process was best described by Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherm and obeyed the pseudo-second order kinetic model.