Removal of Iron in Aqueous Solution Using Coconut (Cocos nucifera) Husk as Adsorbent

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Carmona, Cavite is known for its agricultural settings beside of its growth and development regarding technology and industry. With this in mind, admittedly, there are large numbers of agricultural wastes that can be found in this municipality and one of them is the coconut husk. in this case, coconut (Cocos nucifera) husk as a large-numbered waste byproduct, was utilized as a potential adsorbent in the removal of iron in an aqueous solution or in addressing the problem of iron contamination on drinking water.

METHODS

Materials needed for conducting the study were gathered and prepared. Coconut husk underwent washing, sun drying for two days, and the coir and shell were separated. It was then powdered and sieved into particles and kept in bags containing the respective mass of adsorbents. The aqueous solution was prepared by contaminating a liter of distilled water using 25 mL of 1000 ppm iron chloride solution. There were a total of nine100 mL water contaminated with iron that underwent column chromatography, together with 20 grams of the adsorbent, either coir, shell, or a proportion, for each trial.

RESULTS

Each set-up had three trials each with 11.536 ppm as initial concentration of iron in the solution. Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS) was used to pre-test and post-test the aqueous solution. for set-up 1, the treatment of solution using 20 g of coconut coir gave an average concentration of 2.005 ppm of iron left in the contaminants. Using 20 g of coconut shell only as an adsorbent presented 2.228 ppm as an average concentration of iron left in the aqueous solution. for the last set-up, a proportion of both coconut coir and husk was used in the treatment and led to 2.502 ppm of the average concentration of iron left in the solution. By percentages, 82.62% of iron was adsorbed by the coconut coir, 80.69% of iron for the coconut shell, and the proportion of both adsorbed 78.31% of the iron in the solution. The data above were statistically treated using mean average and f-test of the two-way analysis of variance.

DISCUSSIONS

Findings show that there is a significant difference between the amount of iron present in the aqueous solution before and after the treatment of the adsorbents. in terms of the adsorptive property of iron, coconut coir had the highest, followed by the coconut shell, and lastly by the proportion of both coconut coir and shell.