Removal of Some Heavy Metals from Wastewater by Using of Fava Beans

Abstract

The Fava Beans were used in this work as low cost adsorbent material for removal of Pb(II), Cd(II) and Zn(II) ions from aqueous solutions. The samples were prepared without farther treatment and sorted according to the particles diameter by standard sieves 250 - 500 µm. Batch adsorption experiments were carried out to study the adsorption process, several parameters such as Initial pH of adsorbent, effect of contact time, effect of adsorbent amount and effect of metal concentration were conducted in these experiments. The effects of any one of those previously mentioned parameters on the adsorption capacity were studied while the other parameters were kept constant. It was found that the obtained maximum adsorption capacities of Fave beans for the removal of selected heavy metals were very high. This provide us to use Fava beans as a low coast adsorbent material to clean up the water in the environment from toxic heavy metals such as Pb(II), Cd(II) and Zn(II) ions.