Adsorptive removal of heavy metals from oil well produced water using citrullus lanatus peel: Characterization and optimization
Lekan Taofeek Popoola, Adeyinka Sikiru Yusuff, Abel Adekanmi Adeyi, Oluwagbenga Olawale Omotara
Abstract
The effects of adsorbent dosage, reaction time, temperature and pH on the adsorption of Pb2+, Zn2+, Fe2+ and Cu2+ from produced water using activated carbon prepared from Citrullus lanatus peel via calcination at 681.10 °C for 2.61 h were studied. L9 orthogonal Taguchi approach was used for the parametric optimization. Activated carbon was characterized using scanning electron microscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller analysis, X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and; exhibited a porous-graphite-crystalline structure, presence of different metal oxides and active functional groups with large surface area of 1249.7 m2/g. Batch adsorption experiments revealed the efficacy of prepared activated carbon to remove heavy metals from produced water. At optimum points, predicted values were 76.31, 59.3, 69.91 and 84.08% for Pb2+, Zn2+, Fe2+ and Cu2+ removed respectively. The values of R2, Adj-R2 and pred-R2 revealed reasonable agreements between experimental and predicted data which proved developed models to be effective.