COMPARISON OF GEL AND MACROPOROUS RESINS USING THE REMOVAL OF Pb (II) IONS FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS BY CATIONS EXCHANGE RESINS SYNTHESIZED FROM ORANGE MESOCARP AS CASE STUDY

Iyekekpolor R.M.
Department of Chemistry
University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State
Email: iyekekpolorukevwe@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The gel and macroporous resins were compared using the removal of Pb(II) ions from aqueous solution by cation exchange resin synthesized from orange mesocarp. The resin synthesized from the orange mesocarp extract was observed to be a gel type resin while that synthesized from the orange mesocarp residue was observed to be a macroporous type resin. The experiment was carried out using 5ppm, 10ppm, 15ppm, 20ppm, and 25ppm solution of Pb(II) ion and 0.5g of the dry resin was added to 15ml of each concentration solution. Analysis using the atomic absorption spectrophotometer show 84.6% metal ion removal for the 5ppm solution orange mesocarp extract resin (gel type) and 41.0% metal ion removal for the 5ppm solution with the orange mesocarp residue resin (macro-porous type). The initial pH of the metal ion solution decreased from 6.8 to 1.5 for both resin. The result indicates that the orange mesocarp extract resin removed more metal ions at lower concentrations (5ppm) than the orange mesocarp residue resin.