Abstract

The technology development in many industries nowadays, such as electronic industry produces heavy metal wastes which may pollute our environment. The use of adsorbent as a heavy metal removal from soil and water is one of the efficient process which can be considered to be used. In addition the release of the adsorbate becomes an important way as well because usually those heavy metals still have a high value. The objective of this research is to develop adsorbent based on cassava starch. So, the release process will become easier and will not produce another waste. The adsorbent was produced through the grafting of acrylic acid onto cassava starch by using Fenton initiator. To construct a stable 3-D network, the crosslinker (CL) N,N’- methylenebisacrylamide was added. The variable observed were the amount of CL added (0.5%; 1.5%; 2.5% and 3.5%) and the treatment of generating more pores on starch copolymer. The treatments on starch copolymer observed were single freezing, second freezing, and citric acid modification and carbonization methods. Analysis performed on the adsorbent was % add-on, water absorption and metal adsorption (especially Cu²⁺ ion) capacity. The result showed that the used of 2.5% CL produced the highest add-on (47.66 %), the highest water absorption capacity and the highest metal adsorption capacity (0.29g Cu²⁺/g adsorbent) The citric acid modification also produced the highest pores on the adsorbent.

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