Raffia Palm Seed Shell-Derived Carbon for the Removal of Microplastics, Cadmium (Cd), and Copper (Cu) from Polluted Surface Water
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The presence of microplastics and metals in drinking water constitute human health risk. The objective of this study is to remove plastics through filter bed made from raffia palm seed shell and carry out adsorption study to remove Cd²⁺ and Cu²⁺ from simulated waste water. The water was subjected to Gas Chromatographic mass spectrometry (GC/MS) method of analysis before and after filtration while activated carbon derived from raffia palm seed shell was used to adsorb the metals. Fourier transformed infrared spectrometric (FTIR) analysis and Scan electron spectroscopy (SEM) were used to characterize the adsorbent before and after the experiment. The results showed that traces of degraded microplastics was recorded with a marginal decrease of 0.03% after filtration when the retention time recorded was compared with values in literature. The results of adsorption experiment showed that the maximum adsorption (qm) for Cd²⁺ and Cu²⁺ are 45.1mgL-1 and 202 mgL-1 respectively for Langmuir isotherm while r2 of 0.266 and 0.908 were recorded respectively for Freundlich isotherm. The FTIR showed broad O-H peak recorded at 3675.2 cm⁻¹, and carbonyl (-C=O-) at 1617.7 cm⁻¹ before adsorption while after adsorption, small none- intense peaks were recorded. Variation of pore sizes were recorded with SEM analysis. The raffia palm seed shell carbon is effective for the adsorption of Cd and Cu but not very good for the removal of plastics.
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