Fruit stones from industrial waste for the removal of lead ions from polluted water

Lead, one of the earliest metals recognized and used by humans, has a long history of beneficial use. However, it is now recognized as toxic and as posing a widespread threat to humans and wildlife. Treatment of lead from polluted water and wastewater has received a great deal of attention. Adsorption is one of the most common technologies for the treatment of lead-polluted water. This technique was evaluated here, with the goal of identifying innovative, low-cost adsorbent. This study presents experiments undertaken to determine the suitable conditions for the use of peach and apricot stones, produced from food industries as solid waste, as adsorbents for the removal of lead from aqueous solution. Chemical stability of adsorbents, effect of pH, adsorbents dose, adsorption time and equilibrium concentration were studied. The results reveal that adsorption of lead ions onto peach stone was stronger than onto apricot stone up to 3.36% at 3 h adsorption time. Suitable equilibrium time for the adsorption was 3-5 h (% Pb adsorption 93% for apricot and 97.64% for peach). The effective adsorption range for pH in the range was 7-8. Application of Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models show high adsorption maximum and binding energies for using these adsorbents for the removal of lead ions from contaminated water and wastewater.