Removal of Copper from Synthetic Wastewater by Tea Waste Adsorbent

Abstract

There are numerous heavy metals present in industrial wastewater. These heavy metals like Cu²⁺ are toxic and harmful for human beings especially copper heavy metal spreads a pulmonary fibrosis disease. There are many methods to remove and recover metals from our environment and many physicochemical methods have been proposed for the removal of this heavy metal from wastewater. Adsorption is the best way for effective purification and separation technique is used in industry especially in wastewater treatments. Cost is an important factor for comparing the adsorbent materials. Therefore, there is increasing research interest in using alternative low-cost adsorbents. For removing this heavy metal, activated charcoal is a good adsorbent but it is quite costly. The investigation has found the use of tea waste as a low-cost adsorbent, which is fruitful to neutralize heavy metal like Cu²⁺.

The experiment result showed that maximum removal of Cu²⁺ ion by tea waste is 90%.