Pea (Pisum sativum L.) peel waste carbon loaded with zirconium: study of kinetics, thermodynamics and mechanism of fluoride adsorption

ABSTRACT

Pea peel waste carbon loaded with zirconium is used as an engineered biochar material for adsorption of fluoride from aqueous solution. The prepared adsorbent was characterized and the material degradation kinetics were studied using thermogravimetric analysis. Adsorption kinetics follow both pseudo-second order and intra-particle diffusion model. Optimization of algorithm yielded Freundlich isotherm as the best fitting equation. Increment in solution temperature thermodynamically favors fluoride adsorption. Fluoride adsorption remains unaffected in presence of specific co-ions. Adsorbed fluoride could be successfully leached using 0.001 N NaOH and reusability of the material was tested up to tenth cycle of continuous operation.

KEYWORDS:

• Pea peel
• bio-sorbent
• zirconium
• fluoride
• adsorption

Acknowledgements

The author (R.K. Dey) is thankful to ICMN, University of Orléans, France, for visiting fellowship. The authors acknowledged the help of Central Instrumentation Facilities (C.I.F.) available for the research work at Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Supplementary material

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Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University Grants Commission, New Delhi, India: [Grant Number MRP 42-264/2013].