Fabrication of polypyrrole composite on perlite zeolite surface and its application for removal of copper from wood and paper factories wastewater.

The large volumes of water used in wood and paper industries produce substantial amounts of wastewater. These industries are among the most polluting ones in the world; there are large quantities of heavy metals (copper, iron, zinc, etc.) and dyes in the wastewater of these industries, and this wastewater has high levels of COD and BOD. We studied copper removal from the effluents of a wood and paper factory by using a polypyrrole composite consisting of natural Zeolite coated on Perlite (PPy/Perlite). The experiments were performed in a batch system in which effects of various parameters including pH, contact time, adsorbent dosage, and temperature on adsorption were studied. Moreover, SEM and FTIR were employed to identify the structure of the synthesized adsorbent. Results indicated that the maximum copper removal (95%) happened at pH=6, contact time of 12 minutes, and adsorbent dose of 0.4 g/100 mL of the wastewater. Furthermore, copper adsorption capacity of the PPy/Perlite adsorbent improved with increases in temperature and reached its peak at 40 °C. Values of the thermodynamic variables (ΔS, ΔH, ΔG) indicated that copper adsorption could occur in the temperature range of 293-323 Kelvin, and was spontaneous and endothermic. Equilibrium information in the studied range of the initial concentrations of copper and in the temperature range suitably matched the Freundlich isotherm. Evaluation of experimental information for studying the kinetics of copper adsorption by PPy/Perlite revealed that copper adsorption followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]