Water contamination has become a serious problem in the industrialized world. Even though there are regulations that limit the amount of contamination allowed to be expelled from factories and into the environment, the contamination of our natural resources is still a growing threat. The research and experiments reported here are meant to find a biosorbent that will efficiently cleanse water of lead ions (Pb<sup>2+</sup>) . Studies have shown that pectin, found in cell walls of fruit, has a high potential to adsorb lead from water. Oranges have a relatively high pectin percentage in their cell walls at 30%. In order to determine the ability of pectin to adsorb lead, orange peels will be compared to purified pectin in the biosorption of lead. The experiment will show whether pectin alone will absorb an amount of lead ions that is greater than or equal to the uptake by the orange peels proving that pectin is the optimal site for biosorption. Future work requires the identification of a plant/ biomass that has the highest pectin levels, or identify a way to selectively breed two relatively pectin-rich biomasses until the offspring has a higher pectin percentage than the parents.

Evaluation of pectin as a target for biosorption of heavy metals

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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