Adsorption and Desorption Mechanism of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch Grafted Polyvinyl Alcohol (OPEFB-g-PVA) Hydrogel in Nickel(II) Removal

Oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) fiber is a highly potential natural polymer to be
used as efficient and low cost adsorbents of heavy metal cations from waste water. Oil
palm empty fruit bunch grafted polyvinyl alcohol (OPEFB-g-PVA) was prepared as
Nickel(II) adsorbent. The ultimate objective of this research is to synthesize OPEFBg-PVA and study the adsorption and desorption of OPEFB-g-PVA hydrogel at
different weight percent of OPEFB. OPEFB-g-PVA was synthesized by using
ammonium persulfate (APS) as initiator and boric acid as the crosslinking agent via
solution polymerization. All of the samples were characterized by Fourier Transform
Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) and Scanning
Electron Microscope (SEM). The wat Besides that, the adsorption and desorption
mechanism of the hydrogel was determined by using Langmuir isotherms.