Removal of heavy metals from aqueous solution using novel adsorbents

Castor seed hulls are used as the novel adsorbent in this project, to adsorb nickel, from
aqueous solution. Nickel is one ofthe many heavy metals that can be hazardous to human
health. Nickels are found in many rivers nearby industrial area such as in China and
India. In order to save the environment and to prevent the pollution from getting worse,
many studies have been conducted to study on ways of removing nickel from the rivers.
In this project, the adsorption technique was applied, and the adsorbent used are castor
seed hulls. The usage of castor seed hulls was because of its low operating cost, high
efficiency, and minimum amount of sludgeto be disposed. This projecttested the effect
of initial concentration for the amount of Ni ions sorbed. The equilibrium sorption was
studied using two widely used isotherm models i.e. Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm
models. The results from isotherm models showed that the process of sorption of castor
seed hulls occurred on a homogenous surface of the castor seed hulls. The highest
percentageremovalofnickel ion from the solution is at the initial concentration of 5ppm
and dosage of0.2g.