Fruit Stones as Adsorbents for the Removal of Lead Ion from Polluted Water

Lead, one of the earliest metals recognized and used by humans, has a long history of beneficial use to humankinds, but now been recognized as toxic and as posing a widespread threat to humans and wildlife. Treatment of lead from polluted water and wastewater has received a great deal of attention. Adsorption technique is one of the most technologies for the treatment of polluted water from lead, but seeking for the low-cost adsorbent is the target of this study. This study records experiments undertaken to determine the suitable conditions for the use of Peach and Apricot stones, produced from food industries as solid waste, as adsorbents for the removal of lead ion from aqueous solution containing this ion. Chemical stability of adsorbents, pH, adsorbents dose, adsorption time and equilibrium concentration were studied. The results reveal that adsorption of lead ions onto Peach stone was stronger than onto Apricot stone upto 4 % at 5 hrs adsorption time. Suitable equilibrium time for the adsorption was 3-5 hrs ( % Pb adsorption 95 % for Apricot and 97.64 % for Peach). The effective adsorption pH in the range 7-8. Application of Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models show high adsorption maximum and binding energies for using these adsorbents for the removal of lead ions from contaminated water and wastewater