Assessing the Adsorptive and Photodegradative Efficiencies of ZSM-11 Synthesized from Rice Husk Ash

摘要

Rice husk was used to synthesize zeolite(ZSM-11).FTIR and X-ray diffraction methods were used to characterize the product.The synthesized zeolite was used to treat underground water from some communities in Cape Coast considering parameters such as total dissolved solids,total hardness,conductivity,nitrate,and phosphate.The percentage reduction in PO_4~(3-)was 96.1 in Ebubonko and 92.5 in Apewosika.Similarly,the NO~(3-)levels also decreased significantly in Kwaprow.The adsorption capability was also determined by using it to remove Pb~(2+)and Zn~(2+)from laboratory prepared solutions with varying masses.The percentage reduction recorded 90.57 and 86.61 for the 1.0 g whilst the 1.5 g showed 93.26 and 89.36,respectively.It was also realized that the adsorption process followed a pseudo-first-order rather than the pseudo-second-order process with their R~2 values of 0.9929 and 0.8503 for the pseudo-first-order and 0.9662 and 0.6912 for the second-order for Pb~(2+)and Zn~(2+),respectively.The adsorption capacity also favored the Freundlich isotherm with R~2 values of 0.7578 and 0.642 rather than Langmuir isotherm with R values of 0.1742 and 0.3856 for Pb~(2+)and Zn~(2+),respectively.The photodegradation ability of the synthesized zeolite was analyzed using rhodamine blue(RhB)and methyl orange(MO).The process was realized to favor the pseudo-second-order with R~2 values of 0.9986 and 0.0007 and a constant K2 of 0.035 and 0.021 for RhB and MO,respectively,whereas the pseudo-first-order showed an R~2 value of 0.9376 and 0.9757 with K1 values of 0.03 and 0.02.