Peganum Harmala plant as an adsorbent for the removal of Copper(II) ions from water

Abstract

Batch removal of Cu(II) from water by powdered seeds of Peganum Harmala has been investigated in this research. The Peganum Harmala seeds were collected after which they have been beaten slowly, separated and then cleaned using a sieve. The prepared sorption is characterized by FT-IR. Batch adsorption studies have been undertaken in 100 ml Erlenmeyer flasks, inside an incubator container. The main process parameters that are considered are <em>p</em>H, contact time, Cu(II) concentration, the Adsorbent dose effect and reaction temperature effect. Cu(II) is measured at a wavelength of 620 nm, using a UV-vis spectrophotometer. The result evidence that the maximum removal of Cu(II) is observed at <em>p</em>H 6.2, with the <em>p</em>H over 6.2 result to participate the copper hydroxide. Clearly, the uptake process of the Cu(II) ion occurres very swiftly from the outset of the experiments during the first 15 min, after which there is a low decrease until 40 min, when maximum adsorption of Cu(II) ion onto Peganum Harmala is observed. An increased Cu(II) ions removal percentage occurres with increasing dose of adsorbents, increasing from 0.2 to 0.6 g followed by an increased percentage removal from 63.50% to 66.02%. Subsequently, the removal of Cu(II) ions decline, with an increased dose to 1g. Langmuir adsorption isotherm is more appropriate than the Freundlich adsorption isotherm, while the pseudo second-order reaction model is suitable for adsorption of the Copper ion onto the active centers of the Peganum Harmala surface compared with the pseudo first-order model.