Evaluation of lead (II) removal from wastewater using banana peels: optimization study

The response surface methodology was used to investigate the removal of Pb (II) from an aqueous solution using banana peel with varying operating parameters in a batch mode. The central composite design was used to study the interactive effects of the operating parameters (initial concentration, pH of the solution, adsorbent dosage and the particle size). The banana peel was characterized by FTIR which showed the functional groups, while SEM and EDS were used to study morphology and elemental composition. The optimum removal of Pb(II) was 98.146 % at initial concentration 100 mg/L, pH 5, adsorbent dosage 0.55 g and particle size 75 µm. The deviation between the experimental and the model predicted percentage removal was 5.17 %. The analysis of variance showed that the regression model was significant with a low probability and the correlation coefficient R2 value of 0.9153. The results showed that the biosorption of Pb(II) was highly influenced by the pH and the adsorbent dosage, while the particle size had little effect on the biosorption process.