Banana Peel: A Green Solution for Metal Removal from Contaminated Waters
2013
KKIU, A., University of Ruhuna, Kamburupitiya, Sri Lanka | Charana, W.B., Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Republic of Korea | Yoo, M.H., Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
Certain crop-based waste materials have been recognized as cost-effective and highly efficient adsorbents for removal and recovery of different kind of heavy metals from aqueous solutions. The ability is strongly attributed to the carboxyl functional group of some pectin substances such as galacturonic acid often found in fruit peels. Banana peel is known to be a good source of pectin (10-21%), lignin (6-12%), cellulose (7.6-9.6%), and hemicelluloses (6.4-9.4%). The pectin extraction is reported to contain glucose, galactose, arabinose, rhamnose, xylose, and galactouroninc acid. As revealed by different investigations, banana peel is capable of adsorbing 5.71, 2.55, 28.00, 6.88, 7.97, and 5.80 mg/g of Cd2+, Co2+, Cu2+, Ni2+, Pb2+, and Zn2+, respectively, from aqueous solutions. Adsorption capacity is, however, dependent upon several factors including solution pH, dose of adsorbent and metal concentration, contact time and shaking speed. The world production of banana exceeds 100 million tons annually, thus about 40 million tons of banana peel (40% of total weight of the fresh fruit) remains vastly unused. Exploring a sound technology with banana peel would therefore, not only address the much needed sustainable tool for cleaning contaminated waters, but of course bring an additional value to the banana industry worldwide.
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