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Utilization of sawdust as a pore-former in the fabrication of ceramic adsorbents for water purification

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Abstract

In this study, kaolin-based ceramic materials with sawdust addition (10 and 20 wt.%) were fabricated using a two-level full factorial design of experiments. Next, the effect of sintering temperature and compaction pressure on the physical, chemical, and mechanical properties of the ceramic materials was investigated. From these experiments, an optimum composition was selected and used to fabricate ceramic adsorbents. The filtration efficacy of the optimum adsorbent was tested by evaluating the filtration dynamics of water contaminated with heavy metals like zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), cadmium (Cd), and lead (Pb), and compared with an adsorbent fabricated without the inclusion of the pore former (sawdust). These experiments resulted in a higher heavy metal removal efficiency for the optimum adsorbent of approximately 3%, 61%, and 76% for Cu, Zn, and Ni, respectively, compared with 1%, 5.6%, and 6.4% as obtained for the adsorbent with no pore former. Nonetheless, the optimum ceramic adsorbent showed low efficiency towards the removal of Pb.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the Multifunctional Materials Laboratory, Shell Office in Mechanical Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, and the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, both of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, for providing facilities to carry out this study. In addition, the authors acknowledge the support of the Research and Administrative Assistants, in addition to the Industrial Training Students (2021 cohort) at the Multifunctional Materials Laboratory under the TETFund Project (NRF_SETI_HSW_00714, 2020).

Funding

This work was supported by the Africa Centre of Excellence on New Pedagogies in Engineering Education (ACENPEE), Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria

    Kazeem A. Salami, David O. Obada, Abdulmumin A. Alabi & Ayodeji N. Oyedeji

  2. Multifunctional Materials Laboratory, Shell Office Complex, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria

    Kazeem A. Salami, David O. Obada & Ayodeji N. Oyedeji

  3. Africa Centre of Excellence on New Pedagogies in Engineering Education, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria

    David O. Obada

  4. Department of Physics, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Nitra, Slovakia

    Stefan Csaki

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  1. Kazeem A. Salami
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Salami, K.A., Obada, D.O., Alabi, A.A. et al. Utilization of sawdust as a pore-former in the fabrication of ceramic adsorbents for water purification. J Aust Ceram Soc 58, 1297–1309 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41779-022-00778-3

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