Flower of Typha latifolia as a Low-cost Adsorbent for Quantitative Uptake of Multiclass Pesticide Residues from Contaminated Waters

The quantitative removal of atrazine, diazinon, chlorothalonil, ametryn, chlorpytrifos and dimethametryn from contaminated water was studied using flower of the Typha latifolia. The surface chemistry of this adsorbent was analyzed by FT-IR and the adsorption efficiency was studied using batch adsorption technique. The potential experimental parameters studied were pH (5–9), the dose of adsorbent (0.1–0.5 g), contact time (100–140 min), shaking speed (100–300 rpm) and initial pesticide concentration (3.15–100 μg L). The effects of concentration and contact time at the optimum conditions were used to study equilibrium and kinetic models for pesticide sorption. Results of the sorption equilibria were found to fit better to the Langmuir isotherm model than the Freundlich adsorption model indicating monolayer homogeneous surface conditions. On the other hand, kinetics of all pesticides sorption on the adsorbent was well defined by the pseudo-second-order model. The results obtained showed that the use of this plant be considered as one of the promising, natural, easily accessible and low-cost adsorbent for efficient and quantitative removal of pesticides from contaminated water.