Utilisation of Flame Tree Waste Biomass for the Removal of Hg(II) from Water

Malarvizhi Ramakrishnan and Sulochana Nagarajan*

Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology, Trichy – 620 015, Tamilnadu, India
* Corresponding author: E-mail: sulochan@nitt.edu, malarvizhi1969@gmail.com

Abstract
Activated carbon prepared from sulphuric acid treated Flame tree pods’ has been used for the removal of Hg(II) from aqueous solution. Batch mode experiments were conducted to assess the potential for the removal of Hg(II) from water using the above carbon. Adsorption experiments showed that the adsorption process follows the pseudo second order kinetic model and the equilibrium data were fitted well with both Freundlich and Redlich–Peterson isotherm model. About 92% of mercury (II) adsorbed was recovered from the spent carbon using distilled water (pH: 1) and 3% KI solution.

Keywords: Flame tree pods, Freundlich model, Redlich–Peterson model, pseudo second order, desorption