Removal of Heavy Metals from Aqueous Solution Using a Soybean Acrylamide Copolymer

Yow, Vivian Ling Xian (2022) Removal of Heavy Metals from Aqueous Solution Using a Soybean Acrylamide Copolymer. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Heavy metals contamination in the environment has caused various side effects for living things in recent years. Hence, the aim of this project is to perform heavy metal removal from aqueous solution using the grafted soybean copolymer where soybean is the renewable and biodegradable waste that we can turn waste into gold from this project. The products of synthesised grafted soybean copolymer were analysed by FTIR and TGA to determine the composition and the functional group structure contained. Adsorption properties of grafted soybean copolymer towards metal ions was examined by the effect of pH, adsorbent dosage, contact time and initial concentration of metal solution. The effect of pH was investigated within the pH range of 2 to 7 and pH was adjusted by using both 1M and 0.1M of HCl and NaOH. Optimise pH for Pb(II) removal is at pH 5 as the higher the pH value, the more chances that insoluble metal hydroxide will be formed in the standard solution. Optimum dosage of grafted soybean copolymer was 0.8g in 0.15L of adsorbate where lower dosage of adsorbent will result in incomplete adsorption while at higher dosage of adsorbent will be in highly excess and become wasted. For the adsorption contact time showed a fast increase initially and became slow and gradual as the process went on after 10 minutes. Isotherms of grafted soybean copolymer fit Freundlich isotherms better than Langmuir because the regression coefficient (R2) of Freundlich isotherm (0.9805) was higher than Langmuir isotherms (0.8893). Maximum adsorption capacity calculated from Langmuir isotherms model is 22.1239 mg/g. The constant n value from Freundlich isotherm is 2.2681 which shows that the adsorption is favourable. The R2 value for the kinetic studies of pseudo 2nd order is higher and closer to 1 compared to pseudo 1st order