Adsorption Behaviour of Chromium(Vi) onto Surface Modified Sugarcane Waste

Abstract

An effective chemically modified adsorbent based on sugarcane wastehas been prepared by treating with concentrated sulphuric acid in 2:1weight:volume ratio. Thus prepared adsorbent has been found to be effective in theadsorption of chromium from aqueous medium. The efficacy of the adsorbentin the removal of chromium was evaluated by batch adsorption method. Theeffect of initial concentration, contact time and pH of the solution wasinvestigated. The maximum adsorption capacity onto this adsorbent wasfound to be 195 mg/g at their optimal pH 1 at which unmodified bagasse hasonly 58 mg/g. The characterization of adsorbent was done by determiningsurface area and Boehm’s titration method. Freundlich isotherm and pseudo-second order kinetic model gave better explanation of the adsorption process.