Heavy metal (Zinc, Cadmium, Lead) adsorption onto surface modified activated carbon was performed in order to better understand the effect of sodium ion addition to activated carbon. Surface modification methods in this research included water washing, nitric acid washing, and sodium addition after nitric acid washing. These surface modifications generated oxygen functional groups with sodium ions on the surface of the activated carbon.. This caused the change of the specific surface area as well as in the ratio of the carboxyl groups. Heavy metal adsorption onto sodium-containing activated carbon was the most among the three modifications. After the adsorption of heavy metals, the carboxyl group ratio decreased and sodium ions on the surface of the activated carbon were almost non-existent after the adsorption of heavy metals onto sodium-containing activated carbon. The results from this research indicated that ion exchange with sodium ions in carboxyl groups effectively improved heavy metal adsorption rather than electrostatic adsorption and hydrogen ion exchange.

Keywords: Activated carbon, Heavy metal, Functional group, Ion exchange, Electrostatic interaction, Adsorption