Microwave incinerated sugarcane bagasse ash (MISCBA) as a low cost adsorbent for the removal of zinc in aqueous solution

In this particular research, microwave incinerated sugarcane bagasse ash (MISCBA) obtained by incinerating the sugarcane bagasse was utilized as a low cost adsorbent for the removal of ZnCl2 metal ion from synthetic wastewater through the batch adsorption approach. It was realized that the thermal incineration of the sugarcane bagasse changed the morphological structure of the bagasse. In addition, the surface structure of the sugarcane bagasse has changed from non-porous to a porous surface after incineration. The effect of pH and contact time, adsorbent dosage and initial metal concentration was investigated in this study. A pH value of 6 was found to be optimum. Furthermore, the percentage of adsorption improves with an increase in contact time and a contact time of 180 mins was found to be optimum after attaining equilibrium with a removal efficiency of 96.3. The equilibrium data was well described by Freudlich as well as the Langmuir model with a correlation coefficient of 0.997 and 0.984. The kinetic data fitted well into the pseudo-second order model. © 2014 WIT Press.