Abstract: Heavy metals are well recognized as potential health hazards as they can neither be degraded nor biologically detoxified.
This experimental study aims to investigate the possible use of Libyan local soil, Ashkida soil, mined in the Southern Province of Libya
as a low cost adsorbent to remove copper ions from aqueous solutions. In this work, the effects of various parameters such as adsorbent
dosage, initial concentration of copper, agitation rate, contact time and solution pH level on the adsorption efficiency are investigated
through batch experiments at room temperature. The results indicate that the optimum conditions for copper removal from aqueous
solutions are 60 minutes contact time, 10 g/L adsorbent dose and 500 rpm agitation rate at natural pH value. The results are fitted to
Freundlich, Langmuir, Temkin and Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherms. A satisfactory agreement between the experimental data and the
model-predicted values is expressed by the correlation coefficient, r
2
, and the total mean error, E%. Freundlich model offers the best
representation of adsorption process revealing a monolayer adsorption capacity, qmax, of 27.03 mg/g. A comparison of kinetic models
applied to the adsorption of copper ions on the adsorbent is evaluated by simple first order, pseudo first order and pseudo second order
kinetic models. Kinetic parameters, rate constant, equilibrium sorption capacities and related correlation coefficients for each kinetic
model are determined revealing that the pseudo second order kinetic model is in a better correlation with the experimental data in
comparison with the other isotherms.
علي يوسف عكاشة | Aly Y. Okasha | 11055