Removal of heavy metal (Cu, Cr, and Ni) ions from aqueous solution using derived activated carbon from water hyacinth

Water contamination has a strong negative impact on the atmosphere and human health. So, it is a huge concern nowadays to treat the wastewater emerging from different industries. Bioadsorption is the most promising technique for this purpose. Here we report the formation of activated carbon from naturally available aquatic plants, water hyacinth, and use it further as a bioadsorbent to remove heavy metals like Cr, Cu, and Ni from industrial wastewater. The prepared activated carbon is characterized with different techniques as Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to confirm the formation of carbon and evaluate various physicochemical properties (surface area 135.69 m2/g, pore size 6.65 nm). The prepared activated carbon in the current study is tested for five (0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 3 mg/L) different metal inlet concentrations and results suggest having the highest adsorption capacity (> 98%) for 0.5 mg/L concentration. It proved to have better performance for uptake of heavy metals compared to available carbon samples.