Toxicologia Ambiental e Analítica

Optimization of Biosorption Performance of Casuarina Leaf Powder for the Removal of Lead Using Central Composite Design

Abstract

Srinivasa Rao J*,Kesava Rao C,Prabhakar G

Rapid industrialization, urbanization and increase in population have led to increasing the pollution levels. Heavy metal pollution of water is of major concern now-a-days as water is the basic need for mankind. The present investigation is removal of lead from aqueous solutions using a new biosorbent Casuarina leaf powder. The cumulative effects of operating parameters such as initial metal ion concentration, pH of the aqueous solution, biosorbent dosage and temperature on the lead biosorption were analyzed using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). For obtaining the mutual interaction between the variables and optimizing these variables, a 24 full factorial central composite design was employed. According to ANOVA results, the proposed quadratic model for CCD fitted very well to the experimental data. The optimal set of conditions for maximum percentage biosorption of lead is found to be pH=4.988, biosorption dosage (w) =35.37 g/L, initial lead concentration (Co)=18.0555 mg/L and temperature=306.47 K and the % of biosorption calculated at these values found to be 95.73%. The Langmuir isotherm fitted well with a correlation factor of 0.9944, followed by Freundlich and Temkin. The entire biosorption process followed pseudo second order kinetics. By applying the Van’t Hoff equation the thermodynamic parameters such as enthalpy (ΔH°), entropy (ΔS°) and free energy (ΔG°) were evaluated which described the biosorption process as spontaneous, irreversible and endothermic in nature. The optimized values obtained through central composite design and one factor at a time process is in good agreement.