Polyurethane Loaded with Vegetable Activated Carbon for Heavy Metals Removal from Water

The heavy metals pollutants resulting from industrial wastewater are a major environmental problem due to their toxicity and non-biodegradability. Their removal became a trending environmental subject. The preparation of low-cost and eco-friendly adsorbents for industrial wastewater treatment has been widely investigated. Furthermore, the use of polymeric material for this purpose is highly increasing. In this study, banana stem agro-waste was valorized by preparing and characterizing its derived activated carbon used as a filler to improve the adsorption performance of polyurethane foams. The loaded polyurethane was synthesized in the shape of pellets, characterized by SEM, and tested in removing Pb 2 + and Cu 2 + from aqueous solutions. The effects of activated carbon filler concentration, number of filtering passes, and pH were examined. The loaded polyurethane demonstrated a good adsorption capacity that was enormously improved compared to the unloaded polymer. 77% Pb 2 + and 40% Cu 2 + removal were reached after one filtering pass only. The optimum pH was determined to be 4. After the 10th pass, and at any pH, almost 100% of the studied metals were eliminated. Rapid and straightforward selectivity and seawater deionization tests were carried out and confirmed the capacity performance of the prepared pellets in removing different aqueous ions.