Removal of Nickel (II) ion from aqueous solution onto H2SO4 Activated carbon prepared from Erythrina Indica Bark

Abstract

The potential of economically cheaper natural materials like Erythrina indica Bark was assessed for nickel adsorption from aqueous solutions.The effects of pH, contact time, sorbent dose, initial metal ion concentration and temperature on the upta ke of nickel were studied in batch process.The removal of nickel was dependent on the physico-chemical characteristics of the adsorbent, adsorbate concentration and other studied process parameters.The sorption data has been correlated with Langmuir, Freundlich, Tempkin and Dubinin-Radushkevich adsorption models.It was found that Freundlich and Tempkin isotherms fitted well to the data.Maximum nickel removal was observed at pH 7.0.Under the chosen conditions, Experimental data obtained were fitted with linearised forms of Legergren and Ho kinetic models.The Sum of Error Squares Percentage (SSE%) for first order and second order kinetics were11.72&0.44 respectively.Pseudo-second order model explains the nickel kinetics more effectively.The results revealed that nickel is considerably adsorbed on Erythrina indica Bark and it could be and economic method for the removal of nickel from aqueous solutions.