| Summary: | Mercury is an extremely toxic pollutant that currently being emitted and distributed globally. The exposure of
the mercury will mainly cause health effect and the expo
sure can be in term of dose, age of person exposed
and duration of exposed. One of the adsorbent can remove
mercury is an activated carbon from palm oil fuel
ash (POFA). POFA was used as a low cost adsorbent.
An adsorbent prepared from POFA) was successfully
synthesised and used to remove mercury (Hg2+) from mercury model solution in a batch process. The effects of pH [A], contact time [B], initial concentration of the Hg
2+ solution [C], adsorbent doses [D] and agitation
speed [E] were screened by using response surface me
thodology (RSM). A half fraction two-level factorial
analysis with five factors was selected for the experimental design to determine the best adsorption conditions
for mercury removal. From this study, it was found the highest mercury removal was 98.03 % at adsorbent
capacity 0.10 mg of Hg 2+/g of the adsorbent with conditions of pH 2, contact time 4 h, initial Hg 2+ concentration
of 5 mg/L, adsorbent doses 0.25 g and agitation speed 200 rpm. The most important factor which gives the highest percentage contribution for mercury removal efficiency is contact time [B] with 22.76 % followed by initial mercury ion concentration [C] of 5.50 %. The model obtained in this present study is significant and had
a maximum point which is likely to be the optimum poin
t and possible for the optimisation process later. These
results suggest that POFA has a potential used as an effective, low cost, and eco-friendly green adsorbent for
the removal of mercury from waste water.
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