Removal of copper, zinc and iron from water solutions by spruce sawdust adsorption

The water pollution by toxic elements is one of the major problems threatening human health as well as the quality of the environment. Sorption is considered a cost-effective method that is able to effectively remove heavy metals. During past few years, researches have been researching usage of low-cost adsorbents like bark, lignin, chitosan peat moss and sawdust. This paper deals with the study of copper, zinc and iron adsorption by adsorption of spruce sawdust obtained as a by-product from locally used wood. Raw spruce sawdust was used to remove heavy metal ions from the model solutions with ion concentration of 10 mg/L during 24 hours or 5, 10, 15, 30, 45, 60, 120 min, respectively. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy was applied to determine functional groups of sawdust. Sorption efficiency was higher than 67% in short-time experiments and higher than 75% for one day experiments in all tested cations.