Bioresource Technology 76 (2001) 6365

Short communication

Removal of heavy metals from industrial wastewaters by adsorption

onto activated carbon prepared from an agricultural solid waste
K. Kadirvelu *,1, K. Thamaraiselvi, C. Namasivayam
Department of Environmental Sciences, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore 641 046, Tamil Nadu, India
Received 25 March 2000; received in revised form 17 May 2000; accepted 20 May 2000

Abstract
Activated carbon was prepared from coirpith by a chemical activation method and characterized. The adsorption of toxic heavy
metals, Hg(II), Pb(II), Cd(II), Ni(II), and Cu(II) was studied using synthetic solutions and was reported elsewhere. In the present
work the adsorption of toxic heavy metals from industrial wastewaters onto coirpith carbon was studied. The percent adsorption
increased with increase in pH from 2 to 6 and remained constant up to 10. As coirpith is discarded as waste from coir processing
industries, the resulting carbon is expected to be an economical product for the removal of toxic heavy metals from industrial
wastewaters. 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Coirpith carbon; Adsorption; Heavy metals; Carbon concentration; pH

1. Introduction
Industrial used water is one of the major sources of
aquatic pollution. Among the aquatic pollutants, heavy
metals have gained relatively more signicance in view
of their persistence, bio-magnication and toxicity.
Heavy metal contamination exists in aqueous wastes of
many industries, such as metal plating, mining operations, tanneries, chloralkali, radiator manufacturing,
smelting, alloy industries and storage batteries manufacture (Kadirvelu, 1998).
Treatment processes for metal removal from wastewaters include precipitation, membrane lteration, ion
exchange, adsorption and co-precipitation/adsorption.
Cost-eective alternative technologies or adsorbents for
the treatment of metal-containing wastewaters are
needed. Natural materials that are available in large
quantities, or certain waste products from agricultural
operations, may have potential as inexpensive adsorbents. Due to their low cost, after these materials have
been expended, they can be disposed of without regen-

Corresponding author. Fax: +33-2-5185-8299.

E-mail address: kadirvelu@mailcity.com (K. Kadirvelu).
1
Present address: Departement Systemes Energetiques et Environnement, Ecole Des Mines De Nantes, La Chantrerie, 4, rue A.kastler,
BP-20722, F-44307 Nantes Cedex-3, France.

eration. Generally, adsorbents can be assumed as low

cost if they require little processing, are abundant in
nature, or are a by-product or waste material from another industry (Bailey et al., 1998). Reports have appeared on the preparation of activated carbons derived
from rice husk (Srinivasan et al., 1988), coconut shell
carbon (Arulanantham et al., 1989) coconut tree sawdust carbon (Kadirvelu et al., 2000) and several types of
activated carbon from agricultural by-products (Marshall et al., 1993). As coirpith carbon was shown to remove heavy metals from synthetic solutions the aim of
this study was to investigate the feasibility of using
coirpith carbon for the removal of heavy metals from
industrial euents by varying parameters of pH and
carbon concentration.

2. Methods
Waste coirpith was collected from coir processing
industries and dried in sunlight. Preparation and characteristics of the carbon have been recently reported
(Namasivayam and Kadirvelu, 1997, 1999). Cu(II),
Ni(II) and Pb(II) containing wastewaters were collected
in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India and characterised
using standard methods (APHA, 1980). The wastewaters were diluted to the required concentration and used

0960-8524/01/$ - see front matter 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 6 0 - 8 5 2 4 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 7 2 - 9

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K. Kadirvelu et al. / Bioresource Technology 76 (2001) 6365

for the study of pH and carbon concentration. 0.1 M HCl

or NaOH was used for pH adjustment. After adsorption
samples were separated by centrifugation at 1000 rpm
and the liquid analysed spectrophotometrically. All the
chemicals used were of analytical reagent grade. All the
solutions were made with double distilled water.

3. Results and discussion

The characteristics of wastewaters, collected from
radiator manufacturing, Ni(II) and Cu(II) plating industries are summarised in Tables 13. The removal of
heavy metals from undiluted industrial wastewaters depended upon the composition, and pH. The pH experiment showed maximum removal of 73% for Cu(II),
100% for Hg(II), Pb(II ) and Cd(II) and 92% for Ni(II)
by coirpith carbon at pH 5.0 for Cu(II), 4.0 for Pb(II),
3.5 for Ni(II) and Hg(II), and 4.0 for Cd(II). In the pH
range 4.05.0 maximum adsorption was observed, due
to the partial hydrolysis of metal ions resulting in the
formation of M(OH) and M(OH)2 . M(OH)2 would
have adsorbed to a greater extent on the non-polar
surface than would M(OH) . In the acidic pH range,
2.03.0, there would be a competition between H and
Table 1
Characteristics of radiator manufacturing industry wastewater
Parameter

Value

pH
Conductivity (ms/cm)
Total dissolved solids (mg/l)
Total suspended solids (mg/l)
Turbidity (NTU)
Chemical oxygen demand (mg/l)
Total harsness as CaCO3 (mg/l)
Sodium (mg/l)
Potassium (mg/l)
Calcium (mg/l)
Chloride (mg/l)
Lead (mg/l)
Sulphate (mg/l)

1.45
20.56
5426
76.72
63
416.26
7115
352
9
323
392
709
52

Table 3
Characteristics of copper plating industry wastewater
Parameter

Value

pH
Conductivity (ms/cm)
Total dissolved solids (mg/l)
Iron (mg/l)
Turbidity (NTU)
Chemical oxygen demand (mg/l)
Total hardness as CaCO3 (mg/l)
Sodium (mg/l)
Potassium (mg/l)
Calcium (mg/l)
Copper (mg/l)
Magnesium (mg/l)
Sulphate (mg/l)

2.1
11.26
1923
3.72
56
196
579
191
Nil
126
126
709
106

M2 ions for adsorption on the ion exchangeable sites,

leading to low removal of metal ions.
Increasing carbon concentration increased the percent removal of metal ions. For the quantitative removal
of Cu(II), Hg(II), Pb(II), Cd(II) and Ni(II) the minimum
concentrations of carbon required were 450, 125, 300,
300 and 250 mg/50 ml, respectively. The experimental
results obtained in the batch mode adsorption studies
showed that the coirpith carbon could be eectively used
for the removal of metal ions from real industrial
wastewaters. The mechanism of adsorption of metal
ions seemed to be ion exchange. As the coconut coirpith
is the disposed waste from coir processing industries, the
resulting carbon is expected to be an economical product for metal removal from water and wastewater.
Acknowledgements
Authors K.K and K.T are grateful to Prof. B. Ilango,
Vice-Chancellor, and Prof. V. Gopal and Bharathiar
University, Coimbatore, India for their help, encouragement and facilities. Authors K.K and K.T are also
grateful to CISR-Govt. of INDIA, for the award of
Senior Research Fellowships.
References

Table 2
Characteristics of nickel plating industry wastewater
Parameter

Value

pH
Conductivity (ms/cm)
Total dissolved solids (mg/l)
Turbidity (NTU)
Chemical oxygen demand (mg/l)
Iron (mg/l)
Sodium (mg/l)
Potassium (mg/l)
Calcium (mg/l)
Chloride (mg/l)
Nickel (mg/l)

1.26
19.67
10,266
6
63
32
326
7.0
46
528
996

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