Valorization of Uncharred Dry Leaves of Ficus benjamina towards Cr (VI) removal from Water: Efficacy Influencing Factors and mechanism

The potential of uncharred biomaterial derived from dry leaves of Ficusbenjamina (Family: Moraceae,local name: Weeping Fig) plant to remove Cr(VI) from aqueous samples was investigated. In the present work, treatment of dilute acids was used for activating the adsorption centres on the biomass instead of cumbersome charring process. The plant material was characterized using FT-IR, FE-SEM and EDX. Various influencing factors such as pH of equilibrating solution, contact time, Cr (VI) concentrations, adsorbent dose and temperature were optimized to obtain maximum sorption efficacy. The interactions among the biomaterial and Cr (VI) in water were studied by fitting the sorption data in four different adsorption isotherms. The data fitting and experimental evidences indicated formation of monolayer of Cr(VI) over the biomass surface. The process followed pseudo-second order kinetics and was thermodynamically spontaneous under laboratory conditions and reached equilibrium in 24 hours. Maximum adsorption capacity of 56.82 mg/g was obtained at the pH 2 when the concentration before adsorption was 200 mg L(−1) of Cr(VI) with 24 hours of equilibration time and 2.50 g L(−1) of dose of biomaterial at room temperature. The sorption efficiency was found to be better than many charred bio-based materials.