REMOVAL OF CADMIUM FROM SURFACE WATER OBTAINED AT THE OIL EXPLORATION SITE OF NIGER-DELTA REGION, NIGERIA: OPTIMIZATION OF THE BATCH-SORPTION PROCESS

Abstract

The aim of the study was to determine the efficiency of cadmium contaminant removal from surface water situated near oil exploration sites in Niger-Delta Region. And to optimize the conditions, that is parametric factors for batch-sorption process of cadmium removal by studying as a function of the contact time, temperature, dosage (sorbent loading) and agitation speed using already synthesized bimetallic supported multi-walled carbon nanotube sorbents. The batch-sorption process was fully optimized in a system using 2⁴ factorial model. The optimum values of the parametric factors were found to be contact time 59.729 min, temperature 30.989 ^oC, dosage 0.112 g and agitation 594.988 rpm, respectively. The removal efficiency, in this case, that is the maximum value of 99.071 % was obtained by the empirical model having desirability of 1.000 (and 98.96 % was experimentally verified). Therefore, this study showed the validity of the empirical model and sorption-capability of carbon nanotubes to effectively remove cadmium ions from the polluted surface water obtained at the oil exploration sites in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria.