The Effect of Temperature and Thermodynamics Studies on The Removal of Heavy Metal by using Adsorbent

The need for waste water treatment has intensified in the recent past with the advent of industrial revolution. The major contaminants of water are heavy metals of which chromium, used in leather and electroplating industries is of major concern due to its chronic toxicity. Chromium contamination affects the portability of water and the life forms in it. Hence treatment of chromium contaminated water is necessary. Adsorption using low cost adsorbents proves advantageous due to their efficiency and low cost. In this study, we evaluated the chromium adsorption efficiency of Phyllanthus emblica leaves. The parameters which affect adsorption such as pH, adsorbent concentration, adsorbate concentration, time of contact were optimized to improve the efficiency. The results indicate adsorption had a linear relation with time. The highest chromium adsorption of 58.03 mg/g of absorbent was observed at pH 4 after 2 h of constant stirring. The SEM image of the plant material appeared like a sieve holding up the chromium ions after adsorption. FTIR of the plant material had a high percentage of OH functional group and organic functional groups C-H and C=C. After adsorption, there was an increase in transmittance of 568 cm-1 peak and 3409 cm-1 peak, which corresponds to the metallic bond and OH-1 functional group respectively. The study implies that the leaves of Phyllanthus emblica are potential chromium adsorbents and can be explored for industrial use.