The Fabrication of Natural Zeolite Via Co-Precipitation Method as Cu, Pb and Zn Metal Absorbent

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Heavy metal waste is very dangerous, which can change the condition of water into a solid substance that can be suspended in water and can reduce the cleanliness level of water consumed by living things. To date, heavy metals can be managed through several processes, namely physics, biology or chemistry. One of the ways to overcome heavy metal pollution is to use natural zeolite applying a co-precipitation method, as it is known that zeolite is a powerful natural material to be used for certain purposes. In order to justify the research results, several analyses have been performed, such as X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Surface Area Analyser (SAA), and Atomic Adsorption Spectrophotometric (AAS). From the XRD results, it has been found out that the size of each zeolite with variations in size of 150 mesh, 200 mesh, and 250 mesh is 29.274 nm, 38.665 nm and 43.863 nm, respectively. Moreover, the SEM-EDX has shown that the zeolite under consideration is a type of Na-Zeolite and that the co-precipitation method successfully removes impurity elements, namely, Fe, Ti, and Cl. The results of SAA testing have indicated that the total surface area for each variation of zeolite sizes is 63.23 m<jats:sup>2</jats:sup>/g, 45.14 m<jats:sup>2</jats:sup>/g and 59.76 m<jats:sup>2</jats:sup>/g. The results of the AAS test analysis have demonstrated that the optimal absorption of metal content is observed in a size of 150 mesh zeolite with adsorption power of 99.6 % for Pb metal, 98 % for Cu metal, and 96 % Zn metal.</jats:p>

The Effect of Zeolite Particle Size on Adsorption on Heavy Metals

“…The increase or decrease in absorption in each variation of the type of metal is caused by the exchange of heavy metal ions, zeolite elements that have weak ionization will be filled with ions from strong heavy metals so that weak zeolite ions will decrease. The second cause is due to particle size, small particle size will increase the surface area so that absorption is higher [23]. The particle size is expressed by the mesh size.…”

“…Where, XRD test results show two dominant phases, namely calcium aluminum silicate hydrate (CaAl2Si10O24.7H2O) and aluminum oxide (Al2O3). Sirait, M. has treated natural zeolite with the coprecipitation method which is used as an adsorbent for Cu, Pb, and Zn metals with good results [23]. The size of the zeolite used is 150 mesh, 200 mesh, and 250 mesh.…”