Sorption of Bivalent Ions by Cymbopogon citratus: Characterisation and Investigation of Biosorptive Capacity and Mechanism

The main objective of this study was to investigate the removal of cadmium(II) ions from aqueous solution using raw Cymbopogon citratus as an adsorbent. It was characterized by FT-IR, XRD, SEM-EDAX and its physical parameters were analyzed. Different factors such as pH, contact time, initial concentration and temperature were studied. Maximum adsorption was taken place at the optimum pH of 6 and the equilibrium data were analyzed by Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin Isotherm models. Among those isotherm models Langmuir and Temkin were fitted well with good correlation coefficient (R2). The negative values of ΔG⁰ for all temperature shows the adsorption process for cadmium(II) ion was spontaneous in nature and feasible. The negative value of enthalpy change ΔH⁰ shows the adsorption process is exothermic and the positive value of ΔS⁰ indicates the disorderness or randomness process of adsorption. The positive value of Ea indicates the higher solution temperature favors the adsorption of metal ion onto RCC. The experimental data were analyzed by kinetic studies such as pseudo-first order, pseudo-second order and intra-particle diffusion models. Desorption was also studied and the recovery of the adsorbent was found to be 10%. Thus on the basis of these investigations the present study concludes that the raw Cymbopogon citratus (RCC) was found to be highly effective, nontoxic, environmental friendly and low cost adsorbent for the removal of toxic Cd(II) ions from aqueous solution.