Authors : D. M. Borikar, M. A. Borikar*
Page Nos : 181-185
Description :
Rapid developments and increase in mining and industrial activities have gradually
redistributed many of the toxic metals from the earth’s crust to the environment. Heavy
metal pollution in the environment has gained significant importance in the recent
times because of its detrimental effect on human health. Environmental protection and
waste management are the issues which are of great concern for developing and
especially developed countries and with economic liberalization; the industrial scenario
has also changed rapidly. This rapid industrialization has resulted in accelerating the
flux of heavy metals into the environment. Toxic organic compounds and heavy metal
contamination is of environmental concern due to its effect on human health.
Quantities of heavy metals such as Ni, Pb, Cr, Cd, Zn, Cu, and Fe are important
constituents of industrial wastewaters. The possible chronic effects on human health
from perpetual injection of low concentrations of these metals could be disastrous. Wide
growth in industrialisation is expected in coming decades; the accumulation of these
potentially toxic metals will contaminate land, soil and water bodies. Thus they may
enter human food chain by accumulating in plants Treatment of wastewater containing
heavy metals by adsorption is already emerged as a major field of research. The present
work explores the possibility of using natural polymeric substance, like Glycine max
bark substrate for the sorption Ni (II) from industrial waste streams. The dried and
powdered Glycine max bark is contacted with 1% NaOH and resin product so obtained
is found to be highly efficient in the removal of Ni (II) from the solution. The metal ion
uptake increases with increasing pH of the solution. It is observed that more than 83%
of the metal ion is removed by the substrate from the solution instantaneously. By
using packed columns of the substrate the metal ion concentration from the waste
waters can be reduced to very low levels which are within the acceptable water quality
standards.
