239 © IWA Publishing 2011 Water Quality Research Journal of Canada | 46.3 | 2011

Adsorption of nickel from aqueous solutions using

low cost biowaste adsorbents

Harminder Singh and V. K. Rattan

ABSTRACT

This work has been carried out to check the ability of three biowastes, viz. corn cob ash (CCA),

mango stone ash (MSA) and orange peel powder (OPP), to remove Ni(II) ions from aqueous solution.

The surface environment of the adsorbents was characterized by Fourier transformation infrared

spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis which showed that these adsorbents

contain favorable organic groups, such as, amido, amino, hydroxyls, carboxyl groups, etc., on their

surface and have uniform characteristics in their surface morphology. The particle sizes for the three

screened biowastes were found to be in the range of 1.5–4, 0.7–4.5 and 15–35 μm for CCA, MSA and

OPP, respectively, as revealed by SEM. The effect of different system variables, viz. adsorbent dose,

initial metal ion concentration and pH, were studied. Both Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption

models were suitable for describing the sorption of Ni(II) on all three adsorbents used. The maximum

sorption capacities of CCA, OPP and MSA used in this study were 107.4, 14.0, and 26.6 mg/g,

respectively, for Ni(II) ions at optimum adsorbent dose.

doi: 10.2166/wqrjc.2011.024

Harminder Singh (corresponding author)Department of Chemistry,Lovely Professional University,Punjab 144402,IndiaE-mail: harminder_env@yahoo.com

V. K. RattanDepartment of Chemical Engineering and

Technology,Punjab University,Chandigarh 160014,India

Key words | adsorption, biowastes, Ni(II)

INTRODUCTION

Water is an essential raw material in almost all manufactur-

ing plants, though only a small amount of it may appear in

the final product. The remainder becomes a waste material

contaminant to a smaller or larger degree, depending on

its usage in the plant. After entering the natural water

resources it contaminates them (Pandey & Carney ).

Toxic metals (Pb, Cu, Cd, Cr, Ni, etc.) are present in the

effluents of a variety of industries such as electroplating,

leather tanning, cement, mining, dyeing, fertilizer and pho-

tography and causes severe environmental and public

health problems.

A number of treatment methods for the removal of

metal ions from aqueous solutions have been reported,

mainly reduction, ion exchange, electrodialysis, electroche-

mical precipitation, evaporation, solvent extraction,

reverse osmosis, chemical precipitation and adsorption

(Patterson ). Most of these methods suffer from draw-

backs such as high capital and operational cost or the

disposal of the residual metal sludge.

Adsorption onto solid adsorbents can effectively remove

pollutants from both aqueous and gaseous streams and

therefore has considerable environmental significance. Acti-

vated carbon, the most popular adsorbent, has been

traditionally used for the removal of odor, taste and color,

which are designated as trace pollutants. Its high adsorptive

capacity and versatility have expanded its application to the

treatment of numerous industrial waste streams. Other com-

mercial adsorbents, having increased reversibility, have

been reviewed (Thomas & Crittenden ) and although

their versatility and adsorption capacity are generally less

than those of activated carbon, they are advantageous for

certain applications. Such low cost adsorbents (Adrian

et al. ; Ho &Mckay a) have found use in laboratory

scale for the treatment of various pollutants from water and

wastewater.

A number of low-cost adsorbents such as natural neem

(Azadirachta indica) sawdust and acid-treated sawdust

(Krishnaiah et al. ), sphagnum moss peat (Ho &

240 H. Singh & V. K. Rattan | Adsorption of nickel from aqueous solutions Water Quality Research Journal of Canada | 46.3 | 2011

Mckay b), thai kaolin and ballclay (Chantawong et al.

), acid-treated lignin from the pulp and paper industry’s

black liquor (Pérez et al. ), activated biological sludges

(Lombrarna et al. ; Aksu & Akpínar ; Aksu et al.

), glacial till soil (Al-Hamdan & Reddy ), activated

carbon prepared from almond husk (Hasar ), bagasse

fly ash (Gupta et al. ; Mall et al. ; Garg et al. ),

coir pith (Sudersanan et al. ; Thiravetyan et al. ), par-

tially converted crab shell waste (Dorris et al. ), husk of

Lathyrus sativus (Guha et al. ), starch, activated char-

coal, wood charcoal and clay (Choksi & Joshi ), acid-

treated rice bran (Zafar et al. ), rubber wood ash

(Gupta et al. ), sawdust (Shukla et al. ), tea factory

waste (Malkoc & Nuhoglu ) and Turkish fly ashes

(Bayat ) have been used to remove nickel from aqueous

solutions and industrial wastewaters.

In the present study, comparison of the adsorption

potential of three low cost bio-sorbents, viz. mango

stone ash (MSA), orange peel powder (OPP) and corn

cob ash (CCA), for the removal of nickel from synthetic

aqueous solutions has been checked. The focus of this

study is to use the biowastes without any pretreatment

so as to make the process economically more viable.

Surface properties of these adsorbents have also been

checked with the help of Fourier transformation infrared

spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy

(SEM).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Adsorbents preparation

Adsorbents used in this study are MSA, OPP and CCA,

which are waste materials and abundantly available in

rural areas of India.

MSA: mango stones were collected from the nearby

juice vendors in Chandigarh city. These were washed prop-

erly with distilled water and cleaned from any dust and pulp

of mango. Then these stones were dried at room tempera-

ture. These were then burned in air for 5 h as any other

fuel is burned in the rural areas of India, as this study is

aimed at the low cost adsorbent preparation and use of

any other method can cause an increase in the cost.

OPP: orange peels were collected from the nearby juice

vendors as it is considered as a waste by them. They were

dried at room temperature and then washed well with dis-

tilled water and again dried. Then the orange peels were

powdered.

CCA: corn cobs were collected from the nearby villages,

dried and washed with distilled water. Then these were

burned in air for 5 h.

These adsorbents were stored in an air-tight container

for further use. All the above-mentioned adsorbents were

sieved through an I.S.70 mesh screen (70 μm) prior to

their use.

Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy

It was very important to find out various functional groups

present on the surface of the adsorbent, so that possible

interactions between the adsorbent and metal ions can be

explained. Therefore FTIR spectroscopy was performed for

all the adsorbents by using an FTIR spectrophotometer

(Perkin Elmer RXI spectrum). KBr discs (150 mg) contain-

ing approximately 2% of the adsorbent samples were

prepared just before recording the FTIR spectra in the

range of 400–4,000 cm�1 and with a resolution of 2 cm�1.

The resulting spectra were the average of 16 scans.

Scanning electron microscopy

The surface morphology was determined using a JEOL JSM-

600 SEM.

Adsorption studies

All of the chemical reagents used in this study were of

analytical grade. A stock solution of Ni(II) of 1,000 mg/L

concentration was prepared by dissolving nickel sulfate

in distilled water. All working solutions were prepared by

diluting the stock solution with distilled water. The pH

adjustments were made using sulfuric acid and sodium

hydroxide.

Batch experimental studies were carried out with a

known weight of adsorbent and 50 mL working solution

of different concentration range (50–500 mg/L) in the

100 mL measuring flasks. Although this concentration

241 H. Singh & V. K. Rattan | Adsorption of nickel from aqueous solutions Water Quality Research Journal of Canada | 46.3 | 2011

range is much higher than Ni would be in most effluents,

high concentrations helped in minimizing the error in the

estimation of nickel spectrophotometrically. These flasks

were shaken on a wrist shaker at 200 rpm for 1 h. After

this, the flasks were kept in desiccators for 24 h with

occasional shaking. The basic aim of this study was to

check the adsorption potential of biowastes used without

any pretreatment and for this purpose only 24 h time was

used. This time was sufficient to achieve equilibrium. After

equilibration, the adsorbent was separated by filtration

through Whatman’s paper no. 40 and the aqueous-phase

concentration of the metal ion was analyzed by using stan-

dard spectrophotometric methods by producing a more

intense color using dimethylglyoxime (detection limit up to

100 μg/50 mL) using a Hitachi 330 UV–VIS spectropho-

tometer (Basset et al. ). The sorption experiments have

been carried out in duplicate. Standard deviation and

analytical errors are calculated and the maximum error is

found to be ±5%. Error bars representing 95% confidence

interval are shown in the figures wherever necessary.

The above procedure was repeated with different adsor-

bent doses (10, 20 and 30 g/L) to check the effect of

adsorbent dose. To find the effect of pH on the adsorption

of Ni(II), adsorption studies were performed at different

pH values in the range of 1–10 taking 1 g each of the adsor-

bent in 50 mL solutions of 500 mg/L Ni(II) solution at ten

different pH values.

The sorption equilibrium (Qe) uptake capacity in mg/g,

for each sample is calculated according to mass balance

on the metal ion expressed as

Qe ¼ Ci � Ce

m

� �v ð1Þ

where Ci and Ce are, respectively, initial and equilibrium

concentrations of Ni(II), m is the mass of the adsorbent

and v is the volume of the solution in litres (Krishnaiah

et al. ).

Adsorption isotherms

The adsorption isotherm is a relatively simplemethod for deter-

mining the feasibility of using an adsorbent for a particular

application. The liquid phase isotherm shows the distribution

of adsorbate between the adsorbed phase and solution phase

at equilibrium. It is a plot of the amount of adsorbate adsorbed

per unit weight of adsorbent (Qe) versus the concentration of

adsorbate remaining in solution (Ce).

Adsorption isotherms on different adsorbents are pre-

sented as Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. The former

shows initial rapid adsorption tending to be almost constant

at higher concentrations.

The linear form of the Langmuir isotherm:

1Qe

¼ 1Q

þ 1bQ

1Ce

ð2Þ

The plots of 1/Qe and 1/Ce for Ni(II) at different adsor-

bent doses are drawn. From the slope and intercept, the

values of constants Q and b can be calculated. The constant

Q signifies the adsorption capacity (mg/g) and b relates to

the energy of adsorption (L/mg).

The essential characteristic of the Langmuir equation is

expressed in terms of a dimensionless separation factor RL

(Namasivayam et al. ) and is defined as

RL ¼ 11þ bCo

ð3Þ

where Co is the highest initial metal ion concentration (mg/L)

and b is the Langmuir constant. This parameter indicates the

isotherm shape according to the following adsorption charac-

teristics: RL> 1 unfavorable; RL¼ 1 corresponds to linear;

0<RL< 1 is favorable and RL¼ 0 is irreversible.

The linearized Freundlich isotherm is given by

logQe ¼ logKF þ 1nlogCe ð4Þ

Values of log Qe and log Ce are plotted for the Ni(II)

system to be studied at different adsorbent doses. From the

intercept and slope the values of Freundlich constants KF

and n can be calculated. The KF parameter is relative to

adsorption capacity and n refers to the process intensity

(Gupta & Ali ). This is frequently used for the interpret-

ation of adsorption from solutions because of its simplicity.

Generally, straight-line plots can be obtained by making use

of the empirical Freundlich equation.

242 H. Singh & V. K. Rattan | Adsorption of nickel from aqueous solutions Water Quality Research Journal of Canada | 46.3 | 2011

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Characterization of the adsorbents

FTIR of CCA

The FTIR spectrum of CCA (Figure 1(a)) shows a broad

absorption band at 3,378.4 cm�1, clearly indicating the pres-

ence of �OH groups and �NH groups. A peak at 2,361.1 is

due to C55C stretch. A sharp peak at 1,653.3 cm�1 confirms

the presence of a C55O group. A bend of N–H at 1,559 cm�1

confirms the presence of amide (CONH2) in the adsorbent.

Peaks at 1,071.6 and 1,007 cm�1 in the FTIR spectra of CCA

can be assigned to the stretching vibrations of C–N and C–O

groups, respectively.

FTIR of MSA

In the FTIR spectrum of MSA (Figure 1(b)), a broad absorp-

tion band present at 3,377.4 cm�1 reveals the presence of

�OH and �NH groups in MSA. Peaks present at 2,922.7

and 2,365.9 cm�1 are due to the stretching of C–H and

C55C groups, respectively. An absorption peak around

1,568 cm�1 indicates the presence of N–H group. The

absorption peaks at 1,115.8 and 1,053.7 cm�1 can be

assigned to C–N and C–O stretching, respectively.

FTIR of OPP

The FTIR spectrum (Figure 1(c)) of OPP shows the broad

stretching absorption band at 3,390.1 cm�1 revealing the

presence of alcoholic and/or phenolic �OH or N–H

groups (Akar et al. ). The band at 2,924.5 cm�1 may

be attributed to C–H stretching (Selatnia et al. ). The

C¼O stretch at 1,746.5 cm�1 confirms the presence of an

ester group ( ) and a strong band at 1,635 cm�1 corre-

sponds to the C55C stretching. The absorption peaks at

1,519.1 and 1,052 cm�1 can be assigned to N–H bending

and C–O stretching, respectively (Pan et al. ).

The observations from the FTIR study showed that these

adsorbents contain organic groups which favor adsorption

on the surface of the adsorbents.

Scanning electron microscopy

SEM micrographs of each material were taken to get a

clear view of the grains of the materials. Figures 2(a–c)

show scanning electron micrographs of CCA, MSA and

OPP, respectively. A close observation of the micrograph

of CCA (Figure 2(a)) revealed a structure which is porous

in nature. More specifically, it was found that these pores

are uniformly distributed throughout the material. The diam-

eter of these pores was found to be in the range of 1.5–4 μm.

From Figure 2(b), an idea about the morphology of MSA

was assessed and it was found to have some grains with

sizes in the range 0.7–4.5 μm. On the other hand, OPP

(Figure 2(c)) consists of pellet-like particles distributed uni-

formly throughout. The particle size for the OPP is in the

range of 15–35 μm.

Among these three adsorbents, CCA was found to have

a porous character and was expected to perform better than

the other two adsorbents.

Effect of adsorbent dose

The dependence of Ni(II) adsorption on these three adsor-

bents was studied at room temperature and fixed pH

values by varying the adsorbent amount from 10 to 30 g/L

keeping the adsorbate volume at 50 mL and the Ni(II) con-

centration at 500 mg/L. The results are shown in Figure 3.

The percentage removal of Ni(II) increases rapidly with

the increase in the amount of the adsorbents used in this

study, which may be due to the greater availability of the

exchangeable sites at higher amounts of the adsorbents.

However, the amount of Ni(II) adsorbed per gram of the

adsorbent was decreased from 18.93 to 13.02 mg/g (for

MSA), from 11.69 to 8.19 mg/g (for OPP) and from 44.2

to 16.39 mg/g (for CCA), with increasing adsorbent

amount from 10–30 g/L. This decrease in adsorption

capacity with increase in the adsorbent dose is mainly

because of unsaturation of adsorption sites through the

adsorption process (Kovacevic et al. ).

Effect of pH

Metal adsorption from aqueous solutions is critically related

to pH. It has also been reported that biosorption capacities

Figure 1 | (a)–(c) FTIR spectra of biomass, CCA, MSA and OPP, respectively.

243 H. Singh & V. K. Rattan | Adsorption of nickel from aqueous solutions Water Quality Research Journal of Canada | 46.3 | 2011

for heavy metals are strongly pH sensitive and that adsorp-

tion increases as solution pH increases (Zhang et al. ;

Yu et al. ).

To find out the effect of solution pH for the removal effi-

ciency of three different adsorbents, viz. CCA, MSA and

OPP, experiments were conducted with metal ion solutions

Figure 2 | (a)–(c) Scanning electron micrograph of biomass, CCA, MSA and OPP, respectively.

244 H. Singh & V. K. Rattan | Adsorption of nickel from aqueous solutions Water Quality Research Journal of Canada | 46.3 | 2011

having different pH values. pH of the solution was varied

from 1 to 10, keeping all other variables constant, i.e. temp-

erature (25± 1 WC), 24 h equilibration time, 500 mg/L Ni(II)

ion concentration and aqueous to adsorbent ratio 50:1 (mL/g).

The effect of pH is shown in Figure 4 in terms of the

amount of Ni(II) ions adsorbed per gram (Qe) of the adsor-

bent, respectively, onto the three different adsorbents

Figure 3 | Effect of adsorbent dose on the percentage adsorption of Ni(II) (pH¼ 7.0,

equilibration time¼ 24 h, temperature¼ 25± 1W

C, adsorbate concentration¼500 mg/L) for the three adsorbents used.

mentioned above. Initial investigation of adsorption capa-

bility (Figure 4) showed that all the adsorbents possessed

maximum sorption capacity for the cationic metal ion at

or around pH 6. This may be due to the fact that, at these

pH values, there was a net negative charge on the surface

components of the adsorbents and the ionic state of ligands

such as carboxyl, hydroxyl and amino groups will be such as

to promote a reaction with metal cations. Overall surface

charge on the surface of the adsorbents became positive at

lower pH and the presence of Hþ ions hinders the access

Figure 4 | Influence of pH on amount of Ni(II) adsorbed per unit weight (Qe) for three

different adsorbents (adsorbent dose¼ 1 g, metal ion concentration¼500 mg/L, equilibration time¼ 24 h, temperature¼ 25± 1

W

C).

Figure 5 | Influence of initial Ni(II) concentration (Co) on amount of Ni(II) ions adsorbed

per unit weight (Qe) of the adsorbents (pH¼ 7.0, equilibration time¼ 24 h,

temperature¼ 25± 1W

C, adsorbent dose¼ 0.5 g) for the three adsorbents

used.

245 H. Singh & V. K. Rattan | Adsorption of nickel from aqueous solutions Water Quality Research Journal of Canada | 46.3 | 2011

of metal ions by repulsive forces to the surface functional

groups, which resulted in a decrease of the percentage of

metal adsorption (Low et al. ). Therefore uptake of

Figure 6 | (a)–(c) Adsorption equilibrium isotherms for Ni(II) adsorption (pH¼ 7.0, equilibration

adsorbent doses.

nickel was less below pH 3, possibly due to the cation com-

petition effects with the oxonium (hydronium) ion H3Oþ.

When the pH of the solution was further increased, soluble

hydroxyl species were formed and precipitation of nickel

would occur. It is known that at pH 7.7, biosorption of cat-

ionic metal decreased, probably because of chemical

precipitation. According to the solubility products of metal

hydroxide as follows: Ksp(Ni(OH)2)¼ 10–14, solubility

studies were meaningless above pH 7.7 due to the formation

of insoluble products in the investigated solution (Sing &

Yu ).

Effect of initial metal ion concentration

The amount of Ni(II) adsorbed per gram of the adsorbent

(Qe) for the three chosen adsorbents was observed at differ-

ent metal ion concentrations (50–500 mg/L). Observation

showed that Qe for all three adsorbents increased with an

time¼ 24 h, temperature¼ 25± 1W

C) with MSA, OPP and CCA, respectively, at different

Figure 7 | (a)–(c) Langmuir isotherm for MSA, OPP and CCA, respectively, at different

adsorbent doses (pH¼ 7.0, equilibration time¼ 24 h, temperature¼ 25± 1W

C).

Figure 8 | (a)–(c) Freundlich isotherm for MSA, OPP and CCA, respectively, at different

adsorbent doses (pH¼ 7.0, equilibration time¼ 24 h, temperature¼ 25± 1W

C).

246 H. Singh & V. K. Rattan | Adsorption of nickel from aqueous solutions Water Quality Research Journal of Canada | 46.3 | 2011

increase in initial metal ion concentration (Figure 5), i.e.

from 3.67–18.93, 2.9–11.69 and 4.59–44.2 mg/g for MSA,

OPP and CCA, respectively, at adsorbent concentration of

10 g/L. An increase in the initial concentration of metal

ions contributes to the driving force to overcome mass trans-

fer resistance of ions between the adsorbent and bulk fluid

phases, thus increasing the uptake of metal ions. Moreover,

Table 1 | Values of different constants for Langmuir isotherms at various adsorbent doses. Q

represents the dimensionless separation factor relating to the Langmuir adsorption is

↓Parameter/ CCA OPPadsorbent dose in 50 mL→ 0.5 (g) 1.0 (g) 1.5 (g) 0.5 (g)

R 0.9954 0.9234 0.9545 0.99

SD 0.0061 0.0362 0.0253 0.00

Q 107.4 44.46 27.25 14.01

B 0.01063 0.04214 0.09862 0.01

RL 0.1584 0.04531 0.01988 0.13

an increase of the concentration of metal ions increases the

number of collisions between metal ions and adsorbent,

which results in enhancement of the adsorption process

(Krishnaiah et al. ).

Adsorption isotherms

Heavy metal adsorption data are usually described, ana-

lyzed and modeled using an adsorption isotherm, which

relates the metal uptake per unit mass of the sorbent to

signifies the adsorption capacity (mg/g), B relates to energy of adsorption (L/mg) and RLotherm. SD is the standard deviation which represents variation in the values of a variable

MSA1.0 (g) 1.5 (g) 0.5 (g) 1.0 (g) 1.5 (g)

90 0.9849 0.9947 0.9958 0.9972 0.9898

38 0.0258 0.0209 0.0066 0.0105 0.0282

10.75 7.985 26.62 26.27 13.91

259 0.01475 0.01923 0.01238 0.00919 0.01891

70 0.1194 0.0942 0.1391 0.1787 0.0956

Table 2 | Values of different constants for Freundlich isotherms at various doses. The KF parameter is relative to adsorption capacity and n refers to the process intensity. SD is the stan-

dard deviation which represents variation in the values of a variable

↓Parameter/ CCA OPP MSAadsorbent dose in 50 mL→ 0.5 (g) 1.0 (g) 1.5 (g) 0.5 (g) 1.0 (g) 1.5 (g) 0.5 (g) 1.0 (g) 1.5 (g)

R 0.9966 0.9956 0.9686 0.9734 0.9993 0.9926 0.9578 0.9997 0.9969

SD 0.0273 0.0315 0.0618 0.0457 0.0097 0.0314 0.0703 0.0080 0.0253

KF 1.320 1.288 2.177 0.8943 0.3847 0.4324 1.3564 0.3701 0.03601

n 1.139 1.031 1.119 2.236 1.6790 1.903 2.034 1.283 1.341

247 H. Singh & V. K. Rattan | Adsorption of nickel from aqueous solutions Water Quality Research Journal of Canada | 46.3 | 2011

the equilibrium metal concentration of the bulk phase

(Figures 6(a–c)).

Adsorption study data was also fitted to the Langmuir

(Figures 7(a–c)) and Freundlich (Figures 8(a–c)) isotherms

and values of various parameters were calculated. Table 1

gives the comparison of monolayer adsorption capacity

(Q) and energy of adsorption (b) and Table 2 gives the

Table 3 | Langmuir adsorption capacity for different low cost adsorbents

S. no. Low cost adsorbent name

1 Acid-treated basic lignin from pulp and paper industry’s black

2 Untreated Chlorella vulgaris

3 Acid-pretreated C. vulgaris

4 Calcium alginateþC. lutelaTEM05

5 Natural neem sawdust

6 Acid-treated neem sawdust

7 Free cell of Pseudomonas fluorescens 4F39

8 Immobilized cell of Ps. fluorescens 4F39

9 Biobeads of cell of Ps. fluorescens 4F39

10 Red mud

11 Activated almond husk (MAC-I)

12 Sufuric-acid-activated almond husk (MAC-II)

13 Dried activated sludge

14 Bagasse fly ash

15 Free biomass of Chlorella sorokiniana (FBCS)

16 Loofa sponge-immobilized bimass of C. sorokiniana (LIBCS)

17 Coir pith

18 Modified coir pith

19 Husk of Lathyrus sativus (HLS)

20 Rice bran

21 Rubber wood ash

22 Tea factory waste

comparison of adsorption capacity (KF) and adsorption

intensity (n). Data fitted well to both isotherms as indicated

by the R value which is well above 0.9. But for different

materials and at different doses the suitability of these iso-

therms is different, as shown in Tables 1 and 2 for the

Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms, respectively. It was

also found that values of RL were having values between

Maximum Langmuir adsorptioncapacity (Q in mg/g) Reference

liquor 5.28 Pérez et al. ()

264.74 Gaur et al. ()

437.90

115.99 Ozdemir et al. ()

31.50 Krishnaiah et al. ()

74.10

145.00 Marqués et al. ()

37.00

7.60

13.69 Hannachi et al. ()

30.77 Hasar ()

37.17

238.10 Aksu et al. ()

6.19 Mall et al. ()

45.87 Akhtar et al. ()

59.58

15.95 Sudersanan et al. ()

38.90 Thiravetyan et al. ()

15.70 Guha et al. ()

44.90 Zafar et al. ()

3.10 Gupta et al. ()

15.26 Malkoc & Nuhoglu ()

248 H. Singh & V. K. Rattan | Adsorption of nickel from aqueous solutions Water Quality Research Journal of Canada | 46.3 | 2011

0 and 1, which indicates that the adsorption process for

these adsorbents was favorable. The Langmuir adsorption

capacity (Q) of the three biowastes was compared with

other low cost adsorbents (Table 3) and found to be compar-

able with them.

CONCLUSIONS

In this study, sorption of Ni(II) ions on three different bio-

sorbents, viz. CCA, MSA and OPP, has been investigated.

The following conclusions can be drawn:

1. Therewere certain organic groups present on the surface of

the adsorbents, such as, carboxylic, alcoholic, amides, etc,

whichare known tobe favorable for the adsorptionprocess.

2. Surface morphology and surface particle size of all the

adsorbents were different from each other, and CCA,

having a porous surface, performed better than the

other two.

3. pH of the metal ion solution has a significant effect on

adsorption and maximum adsorption was found to be

around pH 6.

4. The data obtained through this work suggests that all

the three adsorbents used in this study are effective

low cost biosorbents for the removal of Ni(II) ions in

aqueous solution. Although the concentration range

(50–500 mg/L) used in this study is much higher than

Ni would be in most effluents, high concentrations

helped in minimizing the error in the estimation of

nickel spectrophotometrically.

5. The sorption of metal ions was also dependent on the

amount of adsorbent and concentration of the metal ions.

6. The equilibrium adsorption data were correlated by the

Freundlich and Langmuir isotherm equations. The maxi-

mum sorption capacities of CCA, OPP and MSA used in

this study are 107.4, 14.0 and 26.6 mg/g, respectively, for

Ni(II) ions at optimum adsorbent dose.

7. A comparison of the data suggests that CCA is the best

biosorbent among the three adsorbents used for this

study.

8. The adsorption capacity (Q) for the three adsorbents used

in this study is comparable with other low cost adsor-

bents reported in the literature.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors are grateful to the University Grants

Commision (UGC), New Delhi, India for providing

financial help.

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First received 1 September 2009; accepted in revised form 28 June 2011