Adsorptive Properties of a Desert Salsola Vermiculate Species from Synthetic Aqueous Solutions

Abstract

Pollution is becoming a major environmental problem and the current trend is to use available biomass to remove toxic substances from aqueous solutions. The preliminatry adsorption results on a natural Salsola Vermiculata desert plant showed that it is compared well with other biosorbents and might be proved to be useful for wastewater decontamination. Steam and phosphoric acid activations were applied to this plant in order to obtain activated carbon. The batch adsorption experiments followed Langmuir models for acetic acid and nickel ions adsorption. pH influence on the, adsorption process showed that copper and nickel ions were best adsorbed in the pH range between 5 and 6 whereas for acetic acid this was achieved in the 3.4-3.9 range. The heat of adsorption determination from Langmuir constants for the acetic acid showed physical adsorption.