Study of zinc removal from water solutions using hornbeam wooden sawdust

The polluted water from an industry, in particular with heavy metals, aromatic molecules and dyes, is a serious environmental problem because their potential environment toxicity. Therefore, there is a need to develop methods that can remove toxic contaminates from wastewaters. The sorption process is one of the most popular methods for the environment treatment. Adsorption on low-cost materials is studying with great interest by researchers in last years. Hornbeam sawdust is a natural resource and an inexpensive material which can be used for water treatment. In this study, the hornbeam sawdust was used as for the removal of zinc from an aqueous solution. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to determine functional groups of sawdust. The pH decreased from 6.3 to 5.8 during 2 h and in case of 24-hours experiment on the value of 5.4. Hornbeam sawdust had efficiency of zinc removal from aquatic model solutions height than 75 % which means that there is significant potential for sawdust as a sorbent material for heavy metals removal from water.