“Ion Ionescu de la Brad” University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Iaşi
Abstract
The sorption process plays an important role in removing heavy metals such as lead from aqueous environments. In
recent years, the applications of low cost sorbents have been widely studied for heavy metal ions removal from
wastewaters. Natural materials that are available in large quantities or certain wastes from industrial and agricultural
operations have the potential to be used as low cost sorbents, as they represent unused resources, with wide availability
and are environmentally friendly. However, the necessity for investigating more and more natural and waste materials
is still very important in order to obtain the best material for industrial applications. In this context, natural hemp fibers
have been evaluated for Pb (II) sorption from diluted aqueous solutions. In order to establish the optimum conditions,
the effect of initial pH of solution, hemp dose, Pb (II) initial concentration, and temperature and contact time of phases
on the Pb (II) sorption by natural hemp has been studied. It has been found that in the studied initial pH range of 2- 5,
the sorption increases with pH increasing. The values of the Pb (II) sorption percentage increase with increasing hemp
dose. The amount of Pb (II) retained on hemp fibers increase with increasing Pb (II) concentration in initial solution, but
the sorption percentage decreases. The temperature has a favorable effect within the batch sorption under study. The Pb
(II) amounts retained on hemp increase with contact time of phases increasing. The results of this study suggest that
natural hemp could be a viable and potential sorbent for the removal of Pb (II) from wastewaters with low content of the
tested cation
