Adsorptive Removal of Copper from Aqueous Solution onto Raw Rice Husk: Kinetics and Isotherms

The pollution of water with heavy metals has been of great concern due to their toxic nature and other adverse effects. All heavy metals, including those required in small amount for the physiological machinery of living organisms, are extremely toxic at high concentrations. Therefore, heavy metal burden of industrial wastewaters need to be substantially reduced before discharging them into water bodies. Dissatisfaction with conventional methods of metal removal from wastewaters has led to a surge in efforts aimed at finding out suitable alternatives. This work presents the results of study on heavy metals removal from wastewater by adsorption using low cost adsorbents which could be used as an alternative approach to remove heavy metals from wastewater. A series of batch studies were conducted using raw rice husk (RRH) of particle size 300-150 μm mixed with synthetic heavy metal solutions to see the removal of copper metal.