Equilibrium, kinetic and thermodynamic studies for sorption of Ni (II) from aqueous solution using formaldehyde treated waste tea leaves

The sorption characteristic of Ni (II) from aqueous solution using formaldehyde treated waste tea leaves as a low cost sorbent has been studied. The effect of pH, contact time, sorbent dose, initial metal ion concentration and temperature were investigated in batch experiments. The equilibrium data were fitted into four most common isotherm models; Freundlich, Langmuir, Tempkin and Dubinin–Radushkevich (D–R). The Langmuir model described the sorption isotherm best with maximum monolayer sorption capacity of 120.50 mg g−1. Four kinetic models, pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, intraparticle diffusion and Elovich were employed to explain the sorption mechanism. The kinetics of sorption data showed that the pseudo-second-order model is the best with correlation coefficient of 0.9946. The spontaneous and exothermic nature of the sorption process was revealed from thermodynamic investigations. The effect of some common alkali and alkaline earth metal ions were also studied which showed that the presence of these ions have no effect on the sorption of Ni (II). The results showed that waste tea leaves have the potential to be used as a low cost sorbent for the removal of Ni (II) from aqueous solutions.