1. Introduction
Water contaminated with metal ions can cause several health problems. Heavy metal ions such as cadmium, zinc, nickel, chromium, copper and lead can bio-accumulate to be toxic compounds through the food chain. Cadmium is responsible for kidney tubular impairment and osteomalacia. Cadmium, zinc and manganese ions are reported to affect on the ion regulation if present in sufficient concentrations. They are known to affect calcium metabolism, development and skeletal calcification with long term effect and spawning and recruitment of aquatic lives. The PH change of water bodies as a result of effluent can cause serious change in the marine environment which can affect resources especially around the coastal areas (Igwe J.C. and
At the end of growing seasons, a large amount of decomposing leaves and calms letters make problems of repeating the cycle of pollutants in the treated water. At another face, common reed reaped is disposed of by setting on fire, which causes another form of pollution in the air. The aim of using agricultural waste materials as a low-cost precursor for activated carbon preparation is to provide a multi-treatment of environmental pollution. The first one is the disposal of common reed reaped safely with environment-friendly way. The second one is developing a low-cost adsorbent and being used for wastewater treatment (Chen et al.,2010). There are few studies on the preparation and characterization of activated carbon derived from activation of common reed (CR) with chemical treatment.
The purpose of this study was to remove selected heavy metals, namely Cu(II), Cd(II) from aqueous solutions and to evaluate the influence of the chemical concentration of phosphoric acid and burning temperature in preparation of activated carbon from agriculture waste