Metal Ion Removal by Chitosan

Metal ions content in most industrial wastewater demend an advanced technique to efficiently remove this toxic contaminant without giving any hazardous residue after treatment. Most methods employ chemical agent that normally need further treatment. A biopolymer material, which is more inert and do not produce harmful side effects to the environment has been developed and tested in the present study. Chitosan has been selected due to the excellent adsorbent characteristics to investigate chitosan efficiency in adsorbing three types of metal ions in wastewater, namely lead, nickel and zinc. The finding of the study show that lead and nickel are successfully adsorbed which achieve reduction of 100 % to 99 % accordingly and zinc with 97 % adsorption rate.