A Novel Material for the Removal of Zinc from Wastewater Using Sterculia Foetida

In the present work, optimization using central composite design (CCD) was studied to determine the ideal conditions for the adsorption of zinc using Sterculia foetida. The effect of four process parameters, such as time (30–240 min), initial concentration (10–100 mg/L), adsorbent dosage (0.1–1 g), and pH (3–10), was studied to obtain the best results for zinc adsorption on to Sterculia foetida using CCD. With these ranges, CCD has given 30 possible experimental runs. From the desirability values, the optimum values of initial concentration (20 mg/L), adsorbent dosage (0.1 g), and pH (10) were obtained with % removal value of 89.5. From the results obtained, it was clear that pH and initial concentration play a major role in the adsorption of zinc on to Sterculia foetida with p value equal to 0.0413 and 0.0005, respectively. The model F value obtained was 2.84, which implies that the quadratic model is significant. © 2019, The Institution of Engineers (India).