Removal of Nickel (II) Ion from an Aqueous Solution Using Red Brick as an Adsorbent

Abstract

The concentration of pollutants has risen to unsafe levels in environment due to industrial, mining and agricultural processes leading to disposal of waste materials. Nickel ion is one of the heavy metal pollutants from power plants, metal fabrication facilities, and waste incinerators are the main sources of nickel ion's discharge into the environment. Even at very low concentrations, nickel ions in drinking water can cause serious kidney, lung, and cardiovascular diseases. Even though several heavy metal removal techniques like chemical precipitation, ion exchange, reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration, electrodialysis, nanofiltration etc., are available. Adsorption became one of the most successful technologies for removing dangerous chemicals from water because it is simple, affordable, efficient, and flexible. So far several materials were used as adsorbents for the removal of different pollutants in water. In this study, one of the common construction waste material, red brick was used as an adsorbent to remove nickel ion from water. It is cheap and easily available. The adsorbent capacity is examined using nonflow batch process for the red brick adsorbent with varying nickel initial concentrations. The max percentage removal of 95% was achieved at optimum pH-7, 30 minutes of contact time, 1.5 g of adsorbent dosage and particle size of 41.5 microns. Adsorption process is verified for equilibrium and kinetic studies.