Biosorption of heavy metal from aqueous solution using cellulosic waste orange peel

•Valorize an agricultural waste, the orange peel, to prepare an industrial adsorbent.•Remove heavy metal, Cu (II), in order to seek an application scope for our adsorbent.•Determine the transfer coefficient of kf matter to size our adsorber.

This paper discusses the adsorption of copper ions Cu2+ from aqueous solutions onto cellulosic waste orange peel (CWOP).The adsorption process depends on solution pH, adsorbent dose, contact time, initial metal ions concentration and agitation speed. The adsorption kinetics were relatively fast and equilibrium was reached in 60 min. The adsorption equilibrium follows Freundlich adsorption isotherm model. The maximum adsorption capacity value of the (CWOP) for copper ions was 63 mg/g. The thermodynamic study showed that the adsorption of copper ions onto (CWOP) is spontaneous and exothermic. The external mass transfer kinetic model was applied to the experimental results and provided reasonable overall volumetric mass transfer coefficients.

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