Adsorption of heavy metals and organic contaminants from aqueous stream with chemically enhanced kapok fibers

The chemically enhanced kapok fiber was fabricated and tested for an industrial and environmental application, and optimized conditions for fiber modification and adsorption kinetic reactions were developed and evaluated. A significant improvement of the adsorption efficiency for the uptakes of Cd 2+ , Cu 2+ , Ni 2+ , Pb 2+ , and Zn 2+ ions was observed with the chemically enhanced kapok fibers. The experimented metals were removed in the range of 95–99 % with a removal order such as Pb 2+ > Cu 2+ > Ni 2+ ≈ Cd 2+ > Zn 2+ . The adsorption kinetic models for such metals were also studied, indicating that chemisorption and reconstructed three-dimensional (3D) polymer structure were the determining rate step because of the higher correlation rate constant of the pseudo-second-order reaction. Along with metal adsorption study, the adsorption of methylene blue (MB) and trichloroethylene (TCE) with the chemically enhanced fiber was also estimated.