Laboratory experiments were conducted to: A) Synthesis of some materials from agricultural food processing wastes cheap absorber material, and then identifies its main physical and chemical properties, B) Identify the effect of irradiation doses on the adsorption capacities of Pb, Cd, and Cu by materials derived from the above mentioned wastes.
Bio-based polymers are gaining overwhelming interest and recognition worldwide due to the health, safety, and environmental concerns associated with the conventional synthetic polymers. These bio-based polymers are renewable, biodegradable, and environmentally-friendly. The characterization analysis confirmed the successive synthesis of the investigated materials. The processing of rice straw was effective in removing silica and hemicellulose and leaving microcrystalline cellulose with an accepted level of purification. Vulcanized used fried oil was successively to produce polysulphide polymer.
The gamma radiation dose applied to the selected sorbents had a positive effect on the sorption of tested water contaminants (namely, Pb, Cd and Cu) especially the lower doses compared with non-irradiated sorbents. At high applied radiation doses (50 KGy) some sorbents showed inhabitation effect on sorption behavior and also removal efficiencies. It can be concluded that rice straw and fried oil can be used to synthesize suitable sorbents to remove contaminants from the water, and gamma radiation treatment was effective to improve contaminants removal.