Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology 3 (2021) 1–7

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Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology

journal homepage: www.keaipublishing.com/en/journals/environmental-chemistry-
and-ecotoxicology/

Modified oil palm industry solid waste as a potential adsorbent

for lead removal
Mohd Aidil Elias a, Tony Hadibarata b, , Palanivel Sathishkumar c,
⁎ ⁎
a
Department of Water and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
b
Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Science, Curtin University Malaysia, 98009 Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia
c
Key Laboratory of Theoretical Chemistry of Environment, Ministry of Education; School of Chemistry, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, PR China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: As one of the largest oil palm producers in the world, Malaysia also produces the most abundant residues of palm oil
Received 26 June 2020 known as empty fruit bunch (EFB). Mismanaging of this residue such as being unused and disposed to sanitary landfills
Received in revised form 23 September 2020 will put the environments in danger. Hence, modification and environmental application of EFB for the pollutant re-
Accepted 3 October 2020
moval is a hot research topic in recent trend. This study involves modification of palm oil industrial residues as EFB-
Available online 08 October 2020
activated carbon and further used as an adsorbent for the removal of lead. The physicochemical property of the
Keywords:
EFB-activated carbon was assessed using SEM, FTIR and BET. The adsorption conditions i.e., pH, adsorbent dose,
Adsorption and contact time for the effective removal of lead were optimized. The optimum reaction conditions for lead adsorp-
Activated carbon tion by the EFB-activated carbon were 10 g/L of adsorbent, pH 1.0 and 15 min as contact time for the effective removal
Lead of lead in aqueous solution. The maximum lead concentration that has removed successfully was 92.24 mg/L under the
Optimization optimum condition. This study may provide solution to manage the EFB residuals generated from palm oil industries
Palm oil empty fruit bunch and lead contaminated in the aquatic environment.
Solid waste management

1. Introduction
Rapid increases of industrial activities around the globe have led to se-
rious environmental problems [1,2]. Heavy metal pollution in the aquatic
environment is considered as worldwide threat due to its well-known toxic-
ity, carcinogenic and non-biodegradable properties [3,4]. These heavy
metal ions can easily be accumulated through food chain and cause harmful
effects towards aquatic organisms and human population even at lower
concentration [5,6]. Apart from this, it may interact with other organic con-
taminants existing in the environmental compartments which could pose
serious ecological issues, including the formation of newly emerging pollut-
ants (NEPs) [7]. Lead is one of the major contaminants in environmental
compartments [8]. In particular, it is commonly found in wastewater that
generated from different sources, including household plumbing system,
acid battery, e-waste, metal finishing process and so on [9–11]. According
to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA), current
drinking water standard for lead is permitted up to 0.015 mg/L [12].
Once human exposed to lead, it will cause many health issues such as severe
damage to the kidney, liver, brain and nervous system. Long term exposure
of lead can cause even fatality to human as to remove this harmful metal ion
from water bodies became unavoidable [13,14]. Till date, different kind of
methods has been reported for lead removal, which including bioremedia-
tion, adsorption, precipitation, ion exchange and membrane filtration
[15–20]. In general, adsorption process has been highly attracted for
the pollutant removal due to low cost, high efficiency and easy operation
protocol [21–25].
Activated carbon is a promising adsorbent material to be applied in the
environmental applications due to its well-developed porous carbonaceous
structure and high adsorption capacity [26]. It can be produced through the
carbonization and activation of organic substance, mainly of plant origin
such as wood, sawdust, coal, peat, coconut shells, nut shells, bones and
fruit stones [27,28]. The activated carbon-based adsorption has been rec-
ommended as one of the best approaches for the pollutant remediation. De-
spite the prolific use of this adsorbent for wastewater treatment, carbon
adsorption is an expensive treatment process, and this prompted a growing
search for a good substitute of activated carbon [29–31]. New problems

⁎ Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: hadibarata@curtin.edu.my (T. Hadibarata), salemsathishkumar@gmail.com, 20173000@m.scnu.edu.cn (P. Sathishkumar).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enceco.2020.10.003
2590-1826/© 2020 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
M.A. Elias et al.
and recent developments in the area of wastewater treatment require vast
quantities of activated carbon and there is a definite need for improved
and tailor-made material to suit these demanding applications. The substi-
tute of activated carbons should be easily available and economically
feasible.
Malaysia is probably the largest palm oil producer which contributes
with 47% of the world production. Huge amount of oil palm residuals,
namely empty fruit bunch (EFB) being generated every day, these residues
have a significant impact on the environment if it isn't handled safely and in
a sanitary way. Nearly, 12.4 million tons (fresh weight) of oil palm EFB has
been generated per year in Malaysia [32,33]. This waste will pose great
danger to environments as most of the EFB residues are left unused and
being handled as a solid waste. This biomass creates problems with waste
treatment and disposal, open dumping/landfill, and groundwater contami-
nation from leachate. Besides that, burning of biomass causes emission of
haze hazard and toxic chemicals such as dioxins. Accordingly, studies of ef-
fective utilization and recovery of the EFB become urgent and significant
issue. Thus, it is necessary to make a better use of these cheap and abundant
wastes, it is proposed to make them into effective adsorbents after modifi-
cation [34,35]. The production of activated carbon from EFB seems to be
a good approach in Malaysia as a giant producer of oil in the world,
about two million tons (dry weight) of shell and one million tons of ex-
tracted fiber has been generated annually.
In this study, activated carbon was prepared from EFB, which generated
from the palm oil industries as a solid waste material. The physicochemical
properties of the prepared EFB-activated carbon were characterized using
standard analytical techniques. Further, the activated carbon was used for
the lead removal from the aqueous solution.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Preparation for EFB-activated carbon
The EFBs were collected from palm oil industry and washed several
times with tap water and finally with distilled water. The EFB was dried
at 80 °C for 24 h in oven for dehydration until constant weight was ob-
served. Physical activation consisted of carbonization using nitrogen (N2)
gas at flow rate of 2.45 L/min for 30 min followed by activation with car-
bon dioxide (CO2) gas at 0.1 L/min, 900 °C for 15 min was adopted to pre-
pare the activated carbon from EFBNx [32]. The N2 gas was applied to the
system at 2.5 L/min, once the tube furnace was switched on and set at re-
quired temperature of 90 °C for 30 min with the heat rate of 2 °C/min.
The flow rate of N2 gas was stopped, while the CO2 gas was released at
0.1 L/min and continued for the activation time of 15 min. The obtained
activated carbon was ground and sieved to size fractions of ≤250 μm
(0.25 mm).
2.2. Characterization of adsorbent
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM; JSM-5600 model, JEOL Ltd.
Japan) was employed to observe the surface morphology of the EFB-
activated carbon. It has a magnification range from 15× to 200,000×
(reached in 25 steps) and a resolution of 5 nm. It is capable of producing
high-resolution images of a sample surface. Images for powdered EFB-
activated carbon, best quality of the carbonized material produced at
800 °C was picked-up to show the development of pores structure. About
1 mg of activated carbon was used in SEM analysis. The surface chemistry
of the activated carbon was identified using Attenuated total reflection
Fourier-transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy. The spectrum of the
activated carbon was recorded in range 4000 to 650 cm−1. For analysis
purpose, about 1–2 mg of activated carbon powder sample was prepared.
This technique is able to probe in situ single or multiple layers of
adsorbed/deposited species at a solid/liquid interface. It is for this reason
that ATR-FTIR has been implemented in various studies in order to
probe chemical reactions/structure at the solid/liquid interface. The
surface area of activated carbon was messured by the method of
2
Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology 3 (2021) 1–7
Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) using metrometrics ASAP 2010 surface
area analyzer (USA) with N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms at degassing
temperature of 110 °C.
2.3. Batch studies of lead adsorption onto EFB-activated carbon
The adsorption of lead onto the EFB-activated carbon was investigated
at different adsorbent doses of 5, 10, 15 and 20 g/L and various contact
times of 5, 10 15, 30 and 60 min. The detailed adsorption study is shown
in Table 1. Each dose of the prepared activated carbon was added into
100 mL conical flask containing 25 mL aqueous solution of lead with the
concentration of 100 mg/L. The samples were agitated at 150 rpm in a ro-
tary shaker at room temperature of 26 °C. At the end of each interval of
predetermined time, the activated carbon was separated from reaction
solution by filtration using ADVANTEC qualitative filter paper No.131.
The residual lead content in the reaction solution was determined by the
Flame-Atomic Adsorption Spectrometer (FAAS 2380, Perkin Elmer). The
final lead concentration (lead residual) was measured from the standard
calibration curve. Adsorption of lead (mg/L) and percentage of lead re-
moval was calculated based on the following equations (Eqs. (1) and (2)):
Adsorption at time ðtÞ ¼ ðC0 −Ct Þ ð1Þ
ðC 0 −Ct Þ
Removalð%Þ ¼  100 ð2Þ
ðC 0 Þ
where, C0 and Ct are lead concentrations in mg/L initially and at a given
time t, respectively. Relationship between adsorption of lead in the Y-axis
versus contact times in the X-axis was plotted. The effective dose of acti-
vated carbon was selected based on the high lead adsorption performance
considering the economic issue too.
2.4. Statistical design used for optimization studies
Full factorial design of Design-Expert 6.0.8 software was used to deter-
mine the optimum conditions for adsorption of lead by EFB-activated car-
bon. The operating factors that considered in this work were; pH and
contact time. A regression model was developed with the experimental
data to determine the optimum conditions for adsorption of total lead
from aqueous solution of 100 mg/L. The flasks agitate in a rotary shaker
at room temperature. Atomic Adsorption spectrophotometer was used for
the measurement of lead concentration.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Characterization of EFB-activated carbon
The characteristics of the EFB-activated carbon are shown in Table 2.
The surface morphology of the activated carbon was analyzed by SEM anal-
ysis. Fig. 1A–C demonstrates the SEM images of raw EFB fiber, EFB-
activated carbon and lead adsorbed EFB-activated carbon. EFB fiber texture
showed that the surface was dense and planar without any cracks and crev-
ices (Fig. 1A). Thus, it has poor adsorption capacity of the lead. Then, the
structure that covered the surface of the fiber will convert into pore
Table 1
Operating conditions of adsorption test using PAC samples produced.
Parameter Variations
PAC sample produced PAC
Contact time 5, 10, 15, 20, 60 min
Lead aqueous solution Concentration = 100 mg/L
Sample volume 25 mL
PAC dose 5, 10, 15, 20 g/L
Agitation speed 150 rpm
Temperature Room temperature = 26 ± 1 °C
PAC – prepared activated carbon.
M.A. Elias et al.
Table 2
The characteristics of the EFB based activated carbon produced at optimum
conditions.
Parameter Unit EFB-activated carbon
BET surface area m2/g 374.73
Total pore volume cc/g 0.344
Median pore diameter A° 40
Mean particle size μm 43
Bulk density g/L 1
Relative density – 1
Ash content % 11.92
Carbon yield % 25
Surface function – Base, pH = 9
Surface chemistry OH Groups; Carbonyl Compound; Presence of NH2;
Saturated Carbon (Methyl group, CH3) and Vibration
of the bond CCI i.e. (CH2CI)
Elemental composition (% wt) 68.75% Carbon, 25.31% Potassium, 4.02% Silicon
and 1.93% Chlorine
structure after being carbonized (Fig. 1B). As indicated in Fig. 1B and C, the
EFB-activated carbon and lead adsorbed EFB-activated carbon have
honey-combed arrangement with well pore distribution and made up of
cylinder-like tubes, which is similar trend as reported by previous study
[34]. A system of advanced pore network was formed since there were no
more lignocelluloses structures on the surface but many small cavities
over the surface. These well develop pores, the activated carbon possessed
high surface area and adsorptive capacity. In addition, the pore size distri-
bution was found between the range of 3.34–12.2 μm. The BET result dem-
onstrates that surface area of EFB-activated carbon was found to be
374.73 m2/g and well forming pores distribution.
ATR-FTIR analysis was carried out to identify the effect of activation on
surface chemistry of the samples. The spectrum data are shown as in Fig. 2.
The stretching vibration of hydrogen bonded hydroxyl groups (OH) and NH
functional groups like carboxyl, phenols, alcohols and water are character-
ized based on adsorption band at 3000–3700 cm−1. This band only ap-
peared for raw EFB and EFB-activated carbon. The band at 2051.11 cm−1
which is assigned to CN stretching vibrations only be observed in the IR
spectrum of EFB-activated carbon. Meanwhile, at 1733.76 cm−1 the band
appeared as CO stretching vibrations of ketones, aldehydes, carboxylic
acids and ester. This band only be observed at raw EFB and disappeared
once it was carbonized. The bands appeared at 1604.14 cm−1 and
1575.64 cm−1 is assigned to CC stretching of alkenes and CN vibrations.
These bands where observed in both raw EFB and EFB-activated carbon.
The IR-spectra show band at 1455.57 cm−1 and 1371.34 cm-1 for raw
EFB and 1487.71 cm−1 for carbonized EFB which appears as CH2 and
CH3 groups in alkane. The CO stretching of alcohols, phenol and ester
could be found on adsorption band at 950–1300 cm−1 which can be ob-
served on all samples. In addition, CH bending around aromatic compound
also can be observed on all samples. From the IR spectra, the CC, CN and CC
which attributed to alkenes, aromatic and amine group can be found in
Fig. 1. SEM image of (A) raw EFB; (B) EFB-activated carbon; and (C) lead adsorbed EFB-activated carbon.
3
Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology 3 (2021) 1–7
EFB-activated carbon, but the bands disappeared in EFB-activated carbon
after the adsorption. This happens maybe due the adsorbate molecules
interacted with the functional groups leaving CH stretching band
reappeared after that. On top of that, the OH stretching can be found in
all samples except carbonized samples. The activated carbon prepared
with KOH activation consisted of OH and CO stretching functional groups.
The absent of hydroxyl group in carbonized sample may due to thermal in-
stabilities of the bonding during carbonization process and thus reappeared
after treated with KOH. The IR-spectra of commercial activated carbon was
for comparison purpose. The result indicates that the activation of char with
KOH chemical has significant effect on the surface chemistry of EFB-
activated carbon.
3.2. Batch studies
Contact time is one of the important parameters for successful use of the
adsorbents for practical application and rapid sorption is among the desir-
able parameters. The adsorption efficiency of lead(II) ion increased consid-
erably with increasing contact time up to 60 min and later, it was almost
constant. Basically, the removal of sorbate is rapid, but it gradually de-
creases with time until it reaches equilibrium. Fig. 3A represents the per-
centage of lead(II) ion removal versus the contact time for the initial
concentration. The metal showed a fast rate of sorption during the first
5 min of the sorbate–sorbent contact and the removal rate becomes almost
insignificant due to a quick exhaustion of the adsorption sites. The rate of
lead(II) ion removal is higher in the beginning due to a larger surface
area of the adsorbent being available for the adsorption of the metals.
The two-stage sorption mechanism with the first rapid and quantitatively
predominant and the second slower and quantitatively insignificant, has
been extensively reported in literature [34,36,37]. Two stages of reactions
beginning with a rapid increase, followed by a saturation stage (Table 3).
The saturation percentage of lead(II) removal was 92.01%, attained after
15 min of contact time using an equivalent amount of 10 g/L of EFB-
activated carbon. This revealed that the initial active sites on surface of
biosorbent are occupied and subsequently slow phase occurred due to dif-
fusion of the lead(II) ions into the microporous inner surface of the
biosorbent. Therefore, the optimum contact time was selected as 10 min
for further experiments as the other results show no significant different
[38,39].
The adsorbent dosage is an important parameter because this deter-
mines the capacity of an adsorbent for a given initial concentration. The ad-
sorption efficiency for lead(II) as a function of adsorbent dosage was
investigated. Fig. 3B shows that the adsorption increases with the increase
in the dose of EFB-activated carbon. This is because of the availability of
more binding site on the surface at higher concentration of the adsorbent
for complexation of metal ions. The lead(II) ion removal percentage in-
creases sharply with increasing activated carbon dose between the range
of 5–10 g. This may be due to the greater adsorbent surface area and pore
volume available at higher adsorbent dosage providing more functional
M.A. Elias et al.
Fig. 2. FTIR spectrum of (A) raw EFB and (B) EFB-activated carbon.
groups and active adsorption sites that results in a higher lead(II) ion re-
moval percentage. As further small increase in adsorbent dosage from 10
to 15 g, the lead(II) ion removals not show significant different at 15 g/L
and 20 g/L. Furthermore, the results indicate that the lead(II) ion equilib-
rium adsorption capacity of EFB-activated carbon decreases with increasing
dose. It is due to that all active sites are entirely exposed and utilized at
lower EFB-activated carbon dose [37,39,40].
Generally, the pH of a solution is recognized as a very influential param-
eter that governs the adsorption process. It was established that pH affects
the surface charge of the adsorbent pH. In the present study, an increase in
the solution pH led to an increase in qe for the adsorption of lead(II) ions,
especially at pH values greater than 6.7. According to the Pourbaix dia-
gram, lead(II) ion precipitates as Pb(OH) 2 at pH values greater than 6.7
as shown in Fig. 3C. Although this range (pH 7–10) was investigated for re-
moval of lead(II) ions, no uptake could be ascribed to the adsorption onto
activated carbon within this range. However, at pH values lower then 6.7,
removal of lead(II) ions by adsorption onto activated carbon is probable.
Great differences in qe values at pH 5 and 6 could be explained by the com-
petitive effect. Namely, H+ and lead(II) cations compete for the negative
adsorption sites on the carbon surface. Raising the pH will increase the
H+ an ion thus decreases the adsorption of lead(II) ions. The maximum
4
Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology 3 (2021) 1–7
removal obtained was due to the pH 1.0, which means the more pH in-
creases, the less removal of lead achieved and vice versa [41–43].
3.3. Optimization of adsorption characteristics of the activated carbon
Full factorial design of Design-Expert 6.0.8 software was used for the op-
timization studies. By referring to the output data in Table 4, the model pre-
sented high R2 statistics of 0.9876 showing that 98.76% of the variations in
adsorption capacity. The model also shows that R2 is in reasonable agree-
ment with the adjusted R2 value of 0.9669. “Adequate Precision” measures
the signal to noise ratio. A ratio greater than 4 is desirable. The model ratio
of 20.241 indicates a very good signal. According to these criteria, the best
model can be identified. The corresponding analysis of variance (ANOVA)
is also presented Table 4. The Model F-value of 47.73 implies the model
is significant. There is only a 0.46% chance that a “Model F-Value” this
large could occur due to noise. Values of “Prob > F” less than 0.0500 indi-
cate model terms are significant. In this case A, B, A2 are significant model
terms. Values greater than 0.1000 indicate the model terms are not signifi-
cant. If there are many insignificant model terms (not counting those re-
quired to support hierarchy), model reduction may improve your model.
M.A. Elias et al. Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology 3 (2021) 1–7

Fig. 3. Batch studies on lead removal by EFB-activated carbon: (A) effect of adsorbent dosage; (B) effect of pH; and (C) Pourbaix diagram.

The regression model for the adsorption capacity (Response 1) (mg/L) in The factors levels selected from the output as optimized are; pH 1.0 and
terms of coded factors is given by the following equation (Eq. (3)): contact time 15 min. Fig. 4 shows the theoretical versus the experimental
values for adsorption capacity and yield, respectively. It is clearly shown
Response 1 : Adsorption ¼ þ81:54–6:33  A þ 3:25  B þ 2:62  A2 –0:083 that the theoretical values obtained were quite close to the experimental
 B2 þ 0:91  A  B ð3Þ values, indicating that the models developed were successful in bridging
the correlation between the activated carbon preparation variables to the
adsorption capacity and yield. The quality of the model developed was eval-
Table 3 uated based on the coefficient of determination value. The experimental
Adsorption of lead for 10 g/L activated carbon. values of both responses are correlated with the theoretical responses.
Run Factor 1 Factor 2 Lead adsorption The coefficient of determination R2 of 0.987 showed that 98.87% of the
variations in adsorption capacity and yield, respectively, can be explained
(pH) (contact time, min) (mg/L)
by the independent variables; pH of solution and contact time. As the R2
1 5.0 5 74.06 values obtained were very high, which indicating that there was a good
2 5.0 15 81.23
3 3.0 5 77.09
agreement between the experimental and the theoretical (predicted) values
4 3.0 10 81.48 from the models. The closer the R2 value to unity and the smaller the stan-
5 3.0 15 85.88 dard deviation, the better the model will be as it will give theoretical values
6 1.0 5 88.70 closer to the experimental values for the response [30,44,45].
7 1.0 15 92.24
8 5.0 10 78.03
9 1.0 10 90.34

Table 4
ANOVA for selected factorial model (adsorption mg/L).
Source Sum of Square DF Mean Square F Value Prob > F Status

Model 320.54 5 64.11 47.73 0.0046 Significant

A 240.16 1 240.16 178.81 0.0009
B 63.37 1 63.37 47.19 0.0063
A2 13.69 1 13.69 10.20 0.0496
B2 0.014 1 0.014 0.010 0.9254
AB 3.29 1 3.29 2.45 0.2153
Curvature Significant
Residual 4.03 3 1.34
Lack of fit Significant
Cor total 324.57 8
Std. dev. 1.16 R-Squared 0.9876
Mean 83.23 Adj R-Squared 0.9669
C.V. 1.39 Pred R-Squared 0.8488
PRESS 49.09 Adeq Precision 20.241
Fig. 4. Theoretical values vs actual values of prepared activated carbon.

5
M.A. Elias et al.
Fig. 5. 3D surface plots: effect of initial pH of solution and contact time on
adsorption capacity of the activated carbon.
The graphical representations of the model equations facilitate an exam-
ination of the effects of activated carbon preparation factors on the adsorp-
tion capacity. The 3D surface and 2D contour plots between the production
factors are shown in Fig. 5. These results illustrate the responses of different
experimental variables and can be used to identify the major interactions
between the variables. The 3D response surface and contour plots in
Fig. 5 show that the adsorption capacity of activated carbon samples in-
creased with the increase in contact time. The results also showed that
the adsorption capacity of activated carbon generally increased with
lower pH of solution which indicates a good interaction effect between
pH of solution and contact times towards adsorption of lead by the acti-
vated carbon. The optimum factors determined by numerically using soft-
ware with high desirability (1.0) were as follows: pH of solution 1.0 and
15 min as contact time [39,43,46].
4. Conclusions
EFB-activated carbon was found to be an efficient for the adsorption of
lead in aqueous solution. The characterization of lead removal showed that
lead binding is dependent on initial pH, amount of adsorbent dosage and
contact time. Finally, this study suggests that the EFB-activated carbon pre-
pared from palm oil industrial waste might be a good adsorbent material for
lead removal from aqueous environment.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial inter-
ests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the
work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
This project was supported by e-Science Fund of Ministry of Science,
Technology and Innovation Malaysia (No 4S110).
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