Republic of the Philippines
Department of Education
Caraga Administrative Region
Division at Agusan Del Sur
Trento Agusan Del Sur
Partial fulfillment of Research/Biotechnology III
Banana Trunk Fiber (Musa sapientum) as efficient Biosorbent for the removal of Mercury from Aqueous solution.
(Title)
Submitted to: Jerico Catipay
Research adviser
Researcher:
Rocky Jhno Nalua
Rhea Mea Lazo
Novelyn Garin
Research Plan
Banana Trunk Fiber (Musa sapientum) as
efficient Biosorbent for the removal of Mercury from Aqueous solution.
Specifically, it will answer the
following questions:
MAIN PROBLEM
· The
purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of modified Banana Trunk
Fiber to remove Mercury from aqueous solution.
SUB PROBLEM
· Are
there any physical characteristics of modified BTF that can be applied to
remove Mercury from Aqueous solution?
· Is
there any minimum and maximum biosorbent performance of BTF in removing
Mercury?
· What
Ph level is favorable to remove Mercury from aqueous solutionby banana trunk
fiber?
A. OBJECTIVE
OF THE STUDY
B1. General Objective
The aim of this study is to evaluate
the efficiency of modified BTF to remove Mercury from Aqueous solution.
B2. Specific Objective
Aim to the following specifically.
·
Determine
the physical characteristics of modified BTF that can be applied to remove
Mercury from Aqueous solution.
·
Determine
any minimum and maximum biosorbent performance of modified BTF in removing
Mercury.
·
Determine
the Ph level is favorable to remove Mercury from aqueous solution by banana
trunk fiber.
B3. Hypothesis
·
There are no
any physical characteristics of modified BTF that can be applied to remove
Mercury from Aqueous solution.
·
There is no
any minimum and maximum biosorbent performance of modified BTF in removing
Mercury.
·
The Ph level
is not favorable to remove Mercury from aqueous solution by banana trunk fiber.
INTODUCTION
Industrialization has enhanced the
degradation of our environment through the discharge of wastewaters. This
hasoresulted in significant amounts of heavy metal ion such as Mercury being
deposited into our ecosystems. These metals are not biodegradable and known to
cause severe dysfunction of the kidney, reproductive system, liver, brain and
central nervous system. Several methods for removing heavy metal ions such as
chemical precipitation, electrodeposition, ion exchange, reverse osmosis and
adsorption have been used to treat wastewater. Of these methods, chemical
precipitation is the most economic but is inefficient for dilute solution.
Electrodepostion, ion exchange and reverse osmosis are generally effective, but
have rather high maintenance and operation costs and subjectto fouling.
Biosorption, a process that utilizes biomass for the
decontamination of metal-containing effluents is a promising alternative.
Low-cost natural sorbents such as cork and yohimbe bark, spent grain, peanut
hull pellets, rice milling by-products7, grape stalk waste8,
pectin rich fruit wastes and biowaste from fruit juice industry1.
Banana plants are of the family
Musacease and cultivated primarily fortheir fruit. As such, after harvesting
the fruit, the matured pseudostems are generally disposed at a landfill or left
to decompose slowly in a plantation field. The composition of a typical BTF
obtained by elemental analysis, as determined by Bilba et al,11 is
as follows: Cellulose (31.27 ± 3.61 %), Hemicellulose (14.98 ±2.03%), Lignin
(15.07 ± 0.66 %), Extractives (4.46 ± 0.11 %), (Moisture 9.74 ± 1.42 %) and
Ashes (8.65 ± 0.10 %).
The aim of the study is to evaluate
the efficiency of the removal of Cd(II), Cu(II), Fe(II) and Zn(II) from aqueous
solutions by unmodified BTF. The effect of various operating parameters such as
pH, contact time, metal ions concentration, adsorbent dose and change in [M2+]/biomass
was studied. The adsorption isotherm study was also carried out on two isotherm
models, namely Langmuir and Freundlich. The adsorption capacity were determined
and compared by first and second order kinetic models.
Definitions of terms:
The following words or phrases are commonly used when
discussing the research:
Heavy Metals - Metals, when in
significant concentrations in water, that
may pose detrimental health
effects. Heavy metals include lead,
silver, mercury, copper,
nickel, chromium, zinc, cadmium and tin
that must be removed to
certain levels to meet discharge
requirements.
mg/L - Milligrams per liter, a
representation of the quantity of
material present in a
solution. Same value as ppm
Agrowaste- Animal waste, Food
processing waste, Hazardous and Toxic Waste, Crop waste
Biosorption- (chemistry) The removal of metal ions or organic
compounds from solution by microorganisms. ... The goal of biosorption may be
the removal of heavy metals from industrial waste water, the purification of
precious metals such as gold or silver, or the removal of pollutants from soil and
water.
Isotherm- a type of contour line that connects points of equal
temperature at a given date or time on a geographic map
Stearic Acids- Stearic acid is
the common name for octadecanoic acid, which is a saturated fatty acid with
the chemical formula of C18H36O2. It is
used as a lubricant, a hardener, and an emulsifier, a chemical that allows oils
and water to mix.
Calcium Carbonate-Calcium carbonate is an important chemical compound. It
consists of one atom of calciumbonded to one atom of carbon and
three atoms of oxygen. The
molecular formula of calciumcarbonate
is CaCO3. It is the most
common reagent used in flue-gas desulfurization applications, removing harmful
SO2 emissions
from coal and other fossil fuel exhausts. It is also used to de-acidify
lakes and neutralize acidic water runoff from mines.
Background of the study
Mercury pollution is one of the problems of the world. The cause
of this problem is the existing of mining operation in thePhilippines. One of the
biggest mining operations in the Philippines is located in Diwalwal, one of the
Barangays in the municipality of Monkayo, in Compostela Valley and the things
we are worrying about is the existence of mercury in Agusan Marsh.
Mercury pollution can be a serious health threat, especially for children
and pregnant women. Mercury pollution
released into the environment becomes a serious threat when it settles into
oceans and waterways, where it builds up in fish that we eat. Children and
women of childbearing age are most at risk.
The search
for new technologies involving the removal of toxic metals from wastewaters has
directed attention to biosorption, based on metal binding capacities of various
biological materials. Biosorption is being demonstrated as a useful alternative
to conventional systems for the removal of toxic metals from industrial
effluents. The development of the biosorption processes requires further
investigation in the direction of modeling, of regeneration of biosorbent
material and of testing immobilized raw biomasses with industrial effluents.
Banana
plants are of the family Musacease and cultivated primarily fortheir fruit. As
such, after harvesting the fruit, the matured pseudostems are generally
disposed at a landfill or left to decompose slowly in plantation field. The
banana pseudostem fibers, an agro-waste are an efficient biosorbent in the removal of Mercury
from aqueous solutions at pH 5. The kinetics of sorption of the four metal ions
on BTF follows a pseudo-second-order pattern and renewal. Moreover, sorption
capacity is strongly dependent on the metal concentration and pH of solution. Banana
trunk fibers are very cheap, easily available. This study revealed that this
biosorbent could be used as a tool for the development of low-cost
biomaterial-for the treatment of heavy metal waste. It is also worthwhile to
note that by introducing new chemical sites on the biomass may not necessary
aid in the adsorption capacity of BTF.
Significance of the study
This study is a great help and will benefit the
following
· HEALTH- Humans risk
ingesting dangerous levels of mercury when they eat contaminated fish. Since
mercury is odorless, invisible and accumulates in the meat of the fish, it is
not easy to detect and can't be avoided by trimming off the skin or other
parts. Mercury affects every part of the body and can cause long-lasting damage to
your heart, brain, and nervous, reproductive and immune systems. The
Unmodified BTF can help us to remove mercury from contaminated water and
through this we can prevent or avoid risk.
· LOW COST AND HIGH EFFICIENCY
BIOSORBENT- Banana
plants are of the family Musacease and cultivated primarily for their fruit. As
such, after harvesting the fruit, the matured pseudostems are generally
disposed at a landfill or left to decompose slowly in a plantation field.
Instead of decomposing it we would use it as a low cost and efficient
biosorbent.
· MINIMISATION OF CHEMICAL AND LOR
BIOLOGICAL SLUDGE- The search
for new technologies involving the removal of toxic metals from wastewaters has
directed attention to biosorption, based on metal binding capacities of various
biological materials. Biosorption can be defined as the ability of biological
materials to accumulate heavy metals from wastewater through metabolically
mediated or physico-chemical pathways of uptake (Fourest and Roux, 1992). Metal
affinity to the biomass can be manipulated by pretreating the biomass with
alkalies, acids, detergents and heat, which may increase the amount of the
metal sorbed biosorption is being demonstrated as a useful alternative to
conventional systems for the removal of toxic metals from industrial effluents.
C. Methods
and Procedures
C.1
Experimental flow
The following methods will be followed in the entire duration of the study.
Banana Trunk Fiber Preparation, Equilibrium studies, Treatments of Banana
Trunk Fibers
C.1.1 Banana
Trunk Fiber Preparation
Biosorbent materials
The banana
trunk will be collected in the farm located in Isdaon Trento Agusan del Sur. The
pseudostems were chopped into cubes of average size of 2 cm x 2 cm. The cubes
were submerged in boiling water for 1 hr (to soften and kill microorganism) and
then dried in an oven at 70 °C until a constant weight was obtained. The
resulting material was ground using a Warring Commercials high speed blender
and sieved to isolate fibers of the size 212 - 350 micron. (The native metal
content the BTF were observed by using a scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDX)
machine Model Leica Cambridge AS-360 at an accelerating voltage 15kV).It
will be added Calcium carbonate and strearic acid and blend process regain to
obtain softer fibers about 5-15 minutes. The mixture is boiled to make it fully
concentrated.
C.1.2` Equilihrium studies
Adsorption experiments were carried out by adding 0.2 g of sorbent into
250-mL Erlenmeyer flasks containing 50 mL solutions of different concentrations
(1, 10 and 100 mg/L) of metal ions. The temperature was controlled at 25 °C.
Agitation was provided at 150 rpm for 180 min. The initial and equihbrium metal
concentrations were determined by absorbance measurement using the Atomic
absorption Spectroscopy (AAnalyst 700, Perkin-Elmer, Waltham, MA, USA). When
the equihbrium was established, the supernatant was carefully filtered through
Whatman filter paper (No. 1) which was pre-saturated with distilled water. It
is worthwhile to note that no adsorption of the metals occurred on the filter
paper: a comparative study was done by measuring the concentration of the metal
solution before and after filtering, and the result showed insignificant
variation of concentration of the metal solution meaning that the amount of the
metals adsorbed on the filter paper, if any, was negligible. It was then
computed to metal concentration using standard calibration curve. The
adsorption at equihbrium, q (mg/g), was calculated using
equation (1).
where Co and Ce (mg/L) are the liquid-phase
concentrations of metals at initial and equihbrium, respectively. V is
the volume (L) of the solution and W is the weight (g) of dry sorbent.
For the determination of rate of sorption and the sorption equihbrium time, the
residual metal in the supernatant was determined by allowing metal-BTF contact
for different periods between 5 and 180 min. The metal-BTF sorption suspension
was equilibrated at different pH values of 2 — 6. For the adsorption isotherms
studies, metal concentrations used for sorption ranged between 1 and 500 mg/L.
The quantity of biomass was varied between 0.1 and 1.0 g to determine the BTF
required for optimum level of sorption.
C.1.3 Treatments of Banana Trunk Fibers
The BTF were modified according to the methodsoreported in literature: (i)
mercerization, the fibers were immersed in 5% NaOH solution for 48 hr at 25 °C12,
(ii) acetylation, the mercerized fibers were soaked in glacial acetic acid for
1 hr, separated by decantation and then soaked in acetic anhydride containing
2 drops of concentrated H2SO4 for 2 min13, (iii)
formaldehyde treatment, using 1% formaldehyde in the weight to volume ratio of
1:5 at 50 °C for 4 hr14, (iv) peroxide treatment , the mercerized
fibers (30 g) were immersed in 1 L of a 6% solution of benzoyl peroxide in
acetone for 30 min13, (v) stearic acid treatment, a mixture
containing 1.0 g of the fibers, 0.2 g of stearic acid, 2 drops of concentrated
H2SO4 in
100 mL of n-hexane wasorefluxed in a Dean-Stark apparatus at 65 °C for 6 hr15,
and (vi) sulphuric acid treatment, 1 : 1 weight ratio of the fibers :
concentrated H2SO4 was
heated in a muirle furnace for 24 h at 150 °C14. All resulting
fibers were washed ampie amount of water till a pH close to neutral was
obtained.
Experimental Chart
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PREPARATION OF MOBANT FIBERS
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Equilibrium
studies
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Treatments of Banana Trunk Fibers
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Bibliography
