The Fabrication of Natural Zeolite Via Co-Precipitation Method As Cu, Pb and Zn Metal Absorbent

Abstract

Heavy metal waste is very dangerous, which can change the condition of water into a solid substance that can be suspended in water and can reduce the cleanliness level of water consumed by living things. To date, heavy metals can be managed through several processes, namely physics, biology or chemistry. One of the ways to overcome heavy metal pollution is to use natural zeolite applying a co-precipitation method, as it is known that zeolite is a powerful natural material to be used for certain purposes. In order to justify the research results, several analyses have been performed, such as X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Surface Area Analyser (SAA), and Atomic Adsorption Spectrophotometric (AAS). From the XRD results, it has been found out that the size of each zeolite with variations in size of 150 mesh, 200 mesh, and 250 mesh is 29.274 nm, 38.665 nm and 43.863 nm, respectively. Moreover, the SEM-EDX has shown that the zeolite under consideration is a type of Na-Zeolite and that the co-precipitation method successfully removes impurity elements, namely, Fe, Ti, and Cl. The results of SAA testing have indicated that the total surface area for each variation of zeolite sizes is 63.23 m2/g, 45.14 m2/g and 59.76 m2/g. The results of the AAS test analysis have demonstrated that the optimal absorption of metal content is observed in a size of 150 mesh zeolite with adsorption power of 99.6 % for Pb metal, 98 % for Cu metal, and 96 % Zn metal.