Removal of Cadmium from Aqueous Streams by Zeolite Synthesized from Fly Ash

Zeolite was synthesised from fly ash collected from a power plant of Neyveli Corporation, Chennai, India. The synthesised zeolite was characterized using SEM, XRD, and FT-IR. Experiments were conducted to determine the feasibility of using the synthesized zeolite for the adsorption of cadmium using batch technique. The effect of time, dosage, temperature and pH on the adsorption was investigated. The equilibrium data was also collected and applied to the well-known adsorption isotherms of Langmuir, Freundlich and Dubinin–Kaganer– Radushkevich (DKR) model. The data perfectly fits all the models. From Dubinin–Kaganer–Radushkevich (DKR) adsorption model, the mean energy of sorption (E) has been evaluated and found to be 40-70 kJ mol -1