By-products of Maize Cob and Rice Husk Biochar as Adsorbents in Purification of Water from Gombe-Abba River, Gombe State Nigeria

Portable water is an important source for the continuity of life, water scarcity worldwide due to droughts and contamination are concerns that intensify global worrying. Hence the objectives of this paper was to employ by-products of maize cob and rice husk biochar as adsorbents in the purification of water from Gombe-Abba River Gombe State Nigeria using appropriate standard methods. The proximate composition were moisture content (14.41%), ash content (1.23%), and crude fibre (16.45%) and moisture content (10.12%), ash content (1.73%) and crude fire (10.84%) for maize cob and rice husk biochar respectively. surface chemistry for maize cobs biochar includes 3417cm-1 for alcohol (-OH group), 2924cm-1 (C-H stretching), 1636cm-1 (C=C) and 1384cm-1,1250cm-1,1036cm-1 due to C-O stretching vibrations with a presence of micropores obtained from SEM analysis, while the absorption bands obtained from rice husk biochar includes 3443cm-1(-OH group), 2924.04cm-1(-CH group), 1615.21cm-1 (>C=O), 1384.47cm-1(-CH3 stretching) and 1080cm-1(Si-O-Si group) respectively. Isotherm modelling by Langmuir and Freundlich: indicates R2 value of 0.989, 0.983, 0.997, 0.990, 0.981, 0.954, 0.998 and 0.996 for Cd, Pb, Zn, Cr, Co, Ni, Cu and As for maize cob and rice husk biochar respectively.