TITLE:
Assessing Lead Removal from Contaminated Water Using Solid Biomaterials: Charcoal, Coffee, Tea, Fishbone, and Caffeine
AUTHORS:
Lovell Agwaramgbo, Nichole Lathan, Shelby Edwards, ShaKayla Nunez
KEYWORDS:
Heavy Metals; Chemisorptions; Coffee; Lead; Fishbone; Phytoremediation
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.4 No.7,
July
19,
2013
ABSTRACT: Previous research has documented that
solid biomaterials such as charcoal or waste coffee and tea have been used to remove
heavy metals from contaminated aqueous solutions through adsorption. However,
these studies used very low heavy metal concentrations between 10 to 100 ppm. Recently published research work
reported that extracts of edible plants and fruits were able to effectively
remove lead from contaminated aqueous solution. This paper evaluates the ability of
charcoal, un-brewed coffee and tea, fishbone, and caffeine to remove lead from
contaminated aqueous solutions. The order of lead removal from 1300 ppm of lead
solution is Charcoal (100%) > Tea (97%) > Coffee Ground (88%) >
Instant Coffee (83.5%) > Coffee Bean (82%) > Fishbone (76%) > Caffeine
(1.3%). These results clearly demonstrate that not all solid biomaterials can
adsorb lead and that caffeine, a component of coffee and tea does not participate
in the removal of lead from contaminated solutions. Furthermore, the results
suggest that two possible processes may be involved in the reactions presented
here: adsorption of lead by the solid substrates and precipitation of lead by
the solubilized biochemical components of the substrates.