Polyacrylamide@Tangerine Peel Composite: A Novel Adsorbent for Efficient Removal of Pb2+ Ions from Water

In this study, hydrogel@fruit peel composite was synthesized by using polyacrylamide (PAA), a hydrogel, and tangerine peel (TP) as biowaste. The removal performance of PAA@TP was investigated for the Pb2+ ions. The FT-IR and SEM-EDX structural characterizations of PAA@TP showed that PAA@TP has various functional groups. The adsorption data fit to the isotherm models was investigated and the best fit was found with the Langmuir model. This showed that the binding sites on the surface of the PAA@TP composite showed a homogeneous distribution and that Pb2+ ions formed a monolayer on this homogeneous. The results show that PAA@TP can alternatively be efficiently used to treat wastewater containing Pb2+ ions