cadmium removal from aqueous solutions using saxaul tree ash

Cadmium can be found in wastewater in high concentrations and can cause dangerouseffect on aqueous environment and human health. at present, many methods have been used to heavymetals removal. among this clean up techniques, adsorption techniques by using low-cost adsorbent aremore considerable. in this study, batch adsorption experiments were conducted for removal of cadmiumions from aqueous solutions by using saxaul tree ash as a low-cost adsorbent. the batch experimentswere conducted in various conditions as follows: ph (3 to 11), adsorbent dose (0.5 to 6 g/l) g, contacttime (15 to 210 min), and initial cadmium concentration (5-50 mg/l). based on the results, ph=5 with anadsorbent dose of 4 g/l with a 75 min contact time were found to be the optimum for adsorption ofcadmium on saxaul tree ash. also, the results showed that adsorption efficiency is decreased withincrease in initial concentrations of cadmium. the isotherm experiments showed that freundlich modelsatisfactorily represents the proportional fitting. therefore, base on the results of this study, saxaul treeash can be used for efficient removal of cadmium ions from aqueous solution.