REMOVAL OF NICKEL (II) IONS FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTION USING ACTIVATED CARBON DEVELOPED FROM AZADIRACHTA INDICA A LOW COST ADSORBENTManinder Singh, D.P. Tiwari and Mamta BhagatAbstract Present paper deals with the removal of Ni(II) metal ions using activated carbon developed from carbonaceous source material neem leaves (Azadirachta indica) powder as an adsorbent. Heavy metals plays a vital role for proper functioning of biological systems but a large number of disorders arises from their lack or excess. Industrial effluents contain higher concentrations of heavy metals such as Cr, Ar, Cd, Pb, Ti, Hg and Ni that contaminate the water bodies. Adsorption technique was used in this research to extract Ni (II) ions from aqueous solution. Batch experiments were carried out to analyze the influence of different parameters such as solution pH, initial metal ions concentration, adsorbent dosage, contact time and temperature. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) used to analyze the physiochemical and morphological properties of sample. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed micro-structural properties of adsorbent sample. Specific surface area of activated carbon developed from neem leaves (Azadirachta indica) was 32.2 m²/g evaluated by BET. It was concluded that the maximum percentage (%) removal of Ni (II) ions was about 80%. The adsorption experimental data was best fitted to Temkin adsorption isotherm model and kinetic data was in a good agreement with pseudo first order kinetic model. |