What is it about?

The batch adsorption of highly toxic Lead (II) ions from water has been studied in present work. For this, the adsorbent is synthesized by using the low cost agricultural waste material i.e Luffa Cylindrica (LC). LC belongs to cucurbitacea family. First, it is converted into Activated carbon (AC) as it is highly porous and can provide better surface area for the adsorption. This synthesized LCAC is then doped with chitosan (CS) to achieve synergistic and better adsorption potential towards lead (II) ions.

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Why is it important?

Lead (II) ions pollution in water is highly detrimental not only to the human beings but also to the aquatic flora and fauna. According to Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease Registry List (ATSDR), Lead metal ranked as top second killer after Arsenic. The presence of Lead(II) ions do not have any biological role and is highly a cumulative poison. In-spite of all these, very less attention has been given for it's removal in the previous studies. Therefore, the author focused and emphasized the removal of Lead (II) ions from water and developed the novel and effective adsorbent for this. The adsorbent is synthesized by using agricultural waste material that is Luffa cylindrica (LC) . It belongs to cucurbitacea family. It has been converted into activated carbon (AC) and then doped with chitosan (CS) which is again the biocompatible, biodegradable adsorbent containing amino and -OH as an integral functional groups. The synthesis of LCAC doped CS carried out for the first time with this research work. The synergistic combination between CS and LCAC achieved much greater adsorption for Pb(II) ions in comparison to previous studies.

Perspectives

The synthesized novel adsorbent i.e activated carbon of Luffa cylindrica doped chitosan is found to be highly porous and effective for the removal of heavy metal Lead (II) ions from water. Similarly, this adsorbent is of very low cost and economical as it is synthesized from agricultural waste material. In future perspective, this adsorbent can be studied for the removal of other heavy metal ions also from water.

Dr. Asha H. Gedam
Cummins College of Engineering for Women, Nagpur

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This page is a summary of: Activated carbon from Luffa cylindrica doped chitosan for mitigation of lead(ii) from an aqueous solution, RSC Advances, January 2016, Royal Society of Chemistry,
DOI: 10.1039/c5ra22580a.
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