Oil Palm Biomass as an Adsorbent for Heavy Metals

Abstract

Many industries discharge untreated wastewater into the environment. Heavy metals from many industrial processes end up as hazardous pollutants of wastewaters.Heavy metal pollution has increased in recent decades and there is a growing concern for the public health risk they may pose. To remove heavy metal ions from polluted waste streams, adsorption processes are among the most common and effective treatment methods. The adsorbents that are used to remove heavy metal ions from aqueous media have both advantages and disadvantages. Cost and effectiveness are two of the most prominent criteria for choosing adsorbents. Because cost is so important, great effort has been extended to study and find effective lower cost adsorbents.One class of adsorbents that is gaining considerable attention is agricultural wastes. Among many alternatives, palm oil biomasses have shown promise as effective adsorbents for removing heavy metals from wastewater. The palm oil industry has rapidly expanded in recent years, and a large amount of palm oil biomass is available. This biomass is a low-cost agricultural waste that exhibits, either in its raw form or after being processed, the potential for eliminating heavy metal ions from wastewater. In this article, we provide background information on oil palm biomass and describe studies that indicate its potential as an alternative adsorbent for removing heavy metal ions from wastewater. From having reviewed the cogent literature on this topic we are encouraged that low-cost oil-palm-related adsorbents have already demonstrated outstanding removal capabilities for various pollutants.Because cost is so important to those who choose to clean waste streams by using adsorbents, the use of cheap sources of unconventional adsorbents is increasingly being investigated. An adsorbent is considered to be inexpensive when it is readily available, is environmentally friendly, is cost-effective and be effectively used in economical processes. The advantages that oil palm biomass has includes the following:available and exists in abundance, appears to be effective technically, and can be integrated into existing processes. Despite these advantages, oil palm biomasses have disadvantages such as low adsorption capacity, increased COD, BOD and TOC. These disadvantages can be overcome by modifying the biomass either chemically or thermally. Such modification creates a charged surface and increases the heavy metal ion binding capacity of the adsorbent.

A review of the ecosystem functions in oil palm plantations, using forests as a reference system

“…As discussed in Section III.2 b , oil palm plantations may act as net sources of organic waste to the surrounding environment, although organic wastes from oil palms can also be used to treat a variety of pollutants, including heavy metal pollution (e.g. Ahmad et al ., ; Vakili et al ., ). Foster et al .…”

A review on composting of oil palm biomass

“…In the world's vegetable oil market, palm oil is one of the most important sources and produces different biomasses such as the mesocarp fiber, shell, empty fruit bunch (EFB), oil palm frond (OPF), which may lead to significant environmental concerns (Ahmad et al 2011a, b;Mohammad et al 2012;Rafatullah et al 2013;Vakili et al 2014). This review analyzes recent composting studies of palm oil biomasses and provides useful information about the potential uses of these biomasses in composting as an alternative method for treating of biomasses produced from the oil palm industry and as a means of addressing the environmental pollution concerns.…”

Enhancing reactive blue 4 adsorption through chemical modification of chitosan with hexadecylamine and 3-aminopropyl triethoxysilane

“…These drawbacks will lead to serious environmental issues if the effluents enter the environment without proper dye elimination. Among various techniques used for elimination of dyes, adsorption is reported widely as an effective method due to its low cost, effectiveness, convenience as well as producing high-quality discharged effluents [4,5].…”