Biosorption and Chemical Precipitation of Lead Using Biomaterials, Molecular Sieves, and Chlorides, Carbonates, and Sulfates of Na & Ca

Abstract

Lead, a heavy metal, is a well known contaminant in water and has been reported to cause serious health implications to humans, animals, and plants. One of the processes for heavy metal remediation of contaminated water is chemical pre-cipitation. In this present work, chemical precipitation of lead from a contaminated aqueous matrix by chlorides, car-bonates, and sulfates of sodium and calcium was compared to lead removal by molecular sieves and biomaterials (fish-bone, grape and spinach). The order of lead removal from 1400 ppm of lead solution is sodium chloride (31%) < cal-cium chloride (62%) < burnt grape (83%) < charred spinach (92.3%) < sodium phosphate (95.8%) < sodium carbonate (97%) < molecular sieve sphere (98.7%) < sodium sulfate (99.3%) < calcium sulfate (99.7%) < molecular sieves ground (99.71%) < fishbone (99.87%) < calcium carbonate (99.9%).