removal of fe (ii) from aqueous solution by calotropis procera: kinetics, isotherm s tudies, and measurement of competitive adsorption with uv-visible spectrophotometer

Iron is essential heavy metal in trace quantities, but its excessive concentration as fe2+ is present in effluents from s teel mills, iron ore mines, and metal processing indu s tries, which pollute the groundwater. among other conventional methods, sorption by natural biomass is a low-co s t alternative for iron seque s tration from an aqueous solution. the root of a native weed plant calotropis procera was used to optimize the adsorption parameters like ph, contact time, sorbent dose, and initial adsorbate concentration. competitive adsorption of fe2+ in the presence of cations (ni2+, cd2+, cr3+, zn2+, ca2+, mg2+, as3+) and anions (cl-, so4 2- , f-) was also s tudied. batch adsorption s tudies were carried out to evaluate adsorption isotherm by langmuir and freundlich isotherm models. leaching of biomass significantly improved iron uptake capacity from 15 mg g-1 to 80 mg g-1. the kinetics of the reaction was fa s t, with equilibrium conditions attaining in 30 minutes. ftir s tudy of the biomass revealed the presence of -cooh, -nh groups responsible for the metal binding mechanism. the biomass could be successfully regenerated with 0.1 m hno3 for further use. successful removal of iron from simulated acidic water was done under optimum conditions. in this s tudy, absorbance was measured by a uv-visible spectrophotometer at 523 nm.