Adsorption of Heavy Metal Ions by Oil Palm Decanter Cake Activated Carbon

摘要

Adsorption processes are widely used by many researchers for the removal of heavy metals from waste streams. Oil palm decanter cake (OPDC) was chosen as a bioadsorbent due to its compositional properties for activated carbon production as well as it is abundant, cheap and readily available raw material produced from palm oil mill. In this study, the OPDC was carbonised at 700°C and activated using a steam at 700°C to produce oil palm decanter cake activated carbon (AC-OPDC). Batch adsorption experiments were carried out to compare the adsorption capacities of the raw OPDC and the AC-OPDC for heavy metals removal. The maximum adsorption capacity of AC-OPDC on Cu(II), Pb(II) and Zn(II) was found to be 45.01, 128.51 and 39.21 mg/g, respectively, which was higher than that of raw OPDC. This study demonstrates that AC-OPDC has the potential to be a bioadsorbent for heavy metal removal such as wastewater.