Fish Bones Proving Their Worth in the De-leadification of Contaminated Water

Abstract

Lead is among the heavy metals that contaminate our soil and water. Chronic exposure to lead has been reported to have serious health implications to humans, animals, and plants as well as our food, soil, and water safety. Adsorption onto biomaterials is one of the most promising processes for heavy metal remediation of contaminated water. In order to assess and compare the efficacy of unmodified and unactivated fish bones, Na2CO3, and Na3PO4 as sorbents in remediating lead contaminated water, triplicate samples of fish bones from three types of fish and the carbonate and phosphate salts were separately exposed to 1400 PPM lead nitrate solution under stirring at room temperature for 24 hrs. The residual lead after the exposure period was analyzed using EPA Method 6010 (Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES)). The percent lead removed from the contaminated aqueous solution by each fish bone, carbonate and phosphate salt was calculated. Lead removal by the fish bone was greater than 99% for each type of fish bone used. The results further suggest that the fish bones removed slightly more lead than sodium carbonate and sodium phosphate. These results suggest that unmodified fish bone is a highly effective biomaterial for removing lead from contaminated water.