Batch Investigations on Cadmium Ion Adsorption Using Activated Carbon with a Focus on pH, Adsorbent Dosage, and Contact Time

One of the most significant environmental issues at the moment is wastewater contaminated with heavy metals. Considering how persistent they are, heavy metal removal from the environment is very important. Adsorption techniques are being used by many researchers to remove heavy metals and one common adsorbent used in these procedures is activated carbon. The aim of this research has been to utilise activated carbon in batch investigations to remove Cadmium (Cd) ions. Several experimental conditions have been considered to see the effect of pH, adsorbent dosage, and contact time. The pH and the adsorbent dose has been varied to find out the optimum pH and the optimum adsorbent dose. The Cd solutions has been prepared with varying concentrations at an optimum pH value for each solution. The initial and final absorbance has been noted before and after adding the optimum dose of activated carbon to each solution to study the effect of contact time and percentage removal efficiency of Cd. Maximum removal efficiency of 88.01% has been observed for Cd at a contact time of 60 minutes. The adsorption results has been validated by isotherm study and the Freundlich model gave a coefficient of regression (R2) value of 0.9504. Maximum Cd ions removal efficiency at the optimum pH and optimum dosage of activated carbon has been found to be 86.81% and 89.65%, respectively. According to the study’s findings, activated carbon works well as an adsorbent when it comes to removing Cd.