Pb2+ Removal by Using Activated Coconut Waste Modified with Different Metal Oxide Nanoparticles

Lead (Pb) is normally found in wastewater discharge from industrial manufacturing. The removal of lead ions (Pb2+) is important to comply with the allowable wastewater discharge limit. To improve the removal of Pb2+ in wastewater, this study focused on investigating the effect of different metal oxides nanoparticles (MNPs), which are Fe2O3, NiO, and Al2O3 modified on activated coconut waste (ACW) and the effect of MNPs weight loading. The modification of different types of MNPs onto ACW is anticipated to investigate the effect of MNPs’ characteristics towards ACW capability in removing the Pb2+. To date, there is no work that reported on assessing the potential of MNPs modified ACW for Pb2+ removal, which would be a good benchmark for nanomaterials development in wastewater treatment application. Coconut waste was chemically activated to produce ACW, and it was modified with the MNPs to produce ACW/Fe2O3, ACW/NiO, and ACW/Al2O3 adsorbents. Batch adsorption method was employed at constant adsorption parameters to test the modified ACW/MNPs adsorbents performance. The result shows that the highest adsorption capacity of Pb2+ by using ACW/Fe2O3 adsorbents was 4.98 mg/g. As an increase in MNPs weight loading, the performance of the adsorbent was increased, where the removal efficiency calculated is more than 99%. From this study, it was found that the synthesis of ACW with three different MNPs has the potential to be an effective adsorbent in Pb2+ removal.