Physicochemical characterization for different types of soil used in Heavy metals removal from aqueous solution
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Date
2020-09
Authors
Ramli, Mohd Syukri
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Pusat Pengajian Sains Kesihatan, Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
Heavy metals are one of the main contributors to water pollution worldwide. The adsorption
study using soil known to be a promising technique to remove heavy metals from aqueous
solution. The previous study claimed that these three types of soil (red-earth, clay and sandy
soil) have successfully adsorbed considerable quantities of heavy metals such as lead (Pb)
and cadmium (Cd) ions from aqueous solution. Thus, this study intended to examine the
physicochemical characteristics of three types of soils (red-earth, clay and sandy) which acted
as adsorbents material to remove the heavy metals from aqueous solution. All soil sample
types were characterized and analyzed using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope-
Energy Dispersion X-ray (FESEM-EDX), Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) and Brunauer,
Emmett and Teller (BET). FESEM micrographs demonstrated different structural images of all
soil samples. The highest percentage amount of metal (Fe) was sandy soil (10.72%) followed
by clay soil (4.38%), and red earth soil (3.87%) was detected using EDX analysis. These
proved that all the samples have Fe metal that facilitates the removal of heavy metals. FTIR
spectra confirmed the presence of silica, hydroxyl and carboxyl functional groups in all types
of soil. The BET data revealed that the pore size of sandy and clay were smaller than redearth
soil. A smaller pore size serves a larger surface area that leads to a successful
adsorption study. The only surface area of sandy soil could be calculated using the BET
analysis. The finding of this study is in mutual agreement with the previous research which
concluded that the physical features of sandy soil yielded a higher percentage of heavy metal
removal compared to red-earth and clay soil.
Description
Keywords
Water pollution , Chemical