Polyurethane Loaded with Vegetable Activated Carbon for Heavy Metals Removal from Water
			
	
 
More details
Hide details
	
	
									
				1
				College of Engineering and Technology, American University of the Middle East, Kuwait
				 
			 
						
				2
				Research Platform for Environmental Science (PRASE), Doctoral School of Science and Technology, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon
				 
			 
						
				3
				Baghdad University, College of Science, Biotechnology Department, Baghdad, Iraq
				 
			 
										
				
				
		
		 
			
			
		
		
		
		
		
			
			 
			Publication date: 2021-10-01
			 
		 			
		 
	
							
					    		
    			 
    			
    				    					Corresponding author
    					    				    				
    					Wassim  El Malti   
    					College of Engineering and Technology, American University of the Middle East, Kuwait
    				
 
    			
				 
    			 
    		 		
			
																																 
		
	 
		
 
 
J. Ecol. Eng. 2021; 22(9):99-110
		
 
 
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
The heavy metals pollutants resulting from industrial wastewater are a major environmental problem due to their toxicity and non-biodegradability. Their removal became a trending environmental subject. The preparation of low-cost and eco-friendly adsorbents for industrial wastewater treatment has been widely investigated. Furthermore, the use of polymeric material for this purpose is highly increasing. In this study, banana stem agro-waste was valorized by preparing and characterizing its derived activated carbon used as a filler to improve the adsorption performance of polyurethane foams. The loaded polyurethane was synthesized in the shape of pellets, characterized by SEM, and tested in removing Pb2+ and Cu2+ from aqueous solutions. The effects of AC filler concentration, number of filtering passes, and pH were examined. The loaded polyurethane demonstrated a good adsorption capacity that was enormously improved compared to the unloaded polymer. 77 % Pb2+ and 40 % Cu2+ removal were reached after one filtering pass only. The optimum pH was determined to be 4. After the 10th pass, and at any pH, almost 100% of the studied metals were eliminated. Rapid and straightforward selectivity and seawater deionization tests were carried out and confirmed the capacity performance of the prepared pellets in removing different aqueous ions.