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A comparative study of using barberry stem powder and ash as adsorbents for adsorption of humic acid

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Abstract

In the present research, investigation of the practical utility of barberry stem powder (BSP) and barberry stem ash (BSA) for humic acid (HA) removal from an aqueous medium by adsorption was carried out. The adsorption process was tested by varying of pH (3–11), reaction time (5–20 min), initial HA concentration (5–40 mg/L), adsorbent dosage (1–4 g/L), and temperature (15–35 °C). The isothermal results revealed that the adsorption process is favorable for both used adsorbents and it is highly described using the Freundlich and Langmuir models (R2 > 0.960). Also, the maximum uptakes of BSP and BSA for HA were 20.220 and 16.950 mg/g at the abovementioned optimized conditions (pH = 7, reaction time = 10 min, temperature = 15 °C, initial HA concentration = 40 mg/L, and adsorbent amount = 1.0 g/L), respectively. The results achieved from the fitting of the experimental data with Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherm model showed that the HA molecules are adsorbed onto the BSP and BSA by physiosorption process. From the thermodynamic study, it appeared that the biosorption process of the HA onto two studied adsorbents was of exothermic nature. The kinetics of the adsorption process of HA has been found to be pseudo-second-order model (R2 = 0.930–0.999). Thus, the results obtained from this paper elucidated that the BSP exhibited higher adsorption capacity in comparison to BSA, for HA removal up to permissible concentrations.

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Acknowledgments

The authors express their gratitude to colleagues at the research laboratory/Faculty of Health/Birjand University of Medical Sciences (Iran) for their spiritual support at various stages of this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran

    Maryam Khodadadi & Ayat Hossein Panahi

  2. Medical Toxicology and Drug abuse Research Center (MTDRC), Birjand University of Medical Sciences (BUMS), Birjand, Iran

    Maryam Khodadadi & Mohammad Kamranifar

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Isra University, Amman, Jordan

    Tariq J. Al-Musawi

  4. Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Sabzevar University of Medical Science, Sabzevar, Iran

    Mohammad Hossein Saghi

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  1. Maryam Khodadadi
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  2. Tariq J. Al-Musawi
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  3. Mohammad Kamranifar
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  4. Mohammad Hossein Saghi
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  5. Ayat Hossein Panahi
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Correspondence to Ayat Hossein Panahi.

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Khodadadi, M., Al-Musawi, T.J., Kamranifar, M. et al. A comparative study of using barberry stem powder and ash as adsorbents for adsorption of humic acid. Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 26159–26169 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-05879-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-05879-4

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