**3. Results**

The heavy metals of Cu, Cd, Fe, and Pb were high in the GR water samples. After a tenfold dilution, the concentration of these metals is still more than 1 mg/L. *Moringa oleifera* cake residue showed that iron (Fe) was fully removed, while copper (Cu) and cadmium (Cd) were successfully removed up to 98%. The reduction of lead (Pb) by 82.31% was achieved (**Table 1**). The initial amount of Fe was 1.306 mg/L and fully removed by *Moringa oleifera* cake residue. This result was totally agreed with [4] study, while [37] had reported that a reduction of Fe by using *Moringa oleifera* cake residue was up to 92% if compared to other heavy metals. Fe was fully removed, and the level of Fe achieved the water standards since concentration of Fe in water should be less than 0.30 mg/L (National Water Quality Standard from Malaysia). In this study, the removal of Pb was within the range of the previous research [37, 38] which indicated that Pb can be removed within 80–89% by using *Moringa oleifera* seed if compared to other natural sources such as beans and peanuts. Copper removal was better than [38] results of Cu which was 90%. The results of Cd removal were in contrast with [37] since the latter results showed 48% of Cd was removed which might be due to the absence of oil extraction from seeds.

In a different study, it was found in Balok River wastewater, Gebeng, Kuantan, that the concentration of Fe and Cr metal were 1 mg/L, while Cu concentration was 0.4 mg/L. *Moringa oleifera* solution was added into the wastewater with different doses to determine the optimum dose. The heavy metals were successfully reduced after the treatment with the *Moringa oleifera* press cake. The removal percentage of iron, copper, and chromium reached 69.99, 88.86, and 93.73%, respectively


**Table 1.** *Heavy metal removal from Gebeng River, Kuantan, Malaysia.*


**Table 2.**

*Heavy metal removal from Gebeng River, Kuantan, Malaysia.*


#### **Table 3.**

*The optimum results for Cd (II) removal with different parameters.*

(**Table 2**). The removal of iron in this experiment was lower than the research done by [37], which had a removal of 92.14%. The removal percentage of chromium in this research was higher than the research done by [39], which was only 60% and almost similar to [40], which was 73%. The copper removal efficiency in this research is approximately similar to the literature statement of [39], which was approximately 90%. The trend of the removal percentage of copper and chromium was found to be alike with the trend in the research done by [31, 41].

*Moringa oleifera* leaves were used to remove Cd(II) from water, and the results showed that there are many parameters that affect the results, such as dose effect, contact time, particle size, pH, and water turbidity effect [10]. In this study, the pH value was insignificant, and other results showed that *Moringa oleifera* leaves are a potential alternative for heavy metal removal at a different percentage as shown in **Table 3**.

### **4. Conclusions**

This chapter focused on the potential use of natural material for heavy metal removal from water and wastewater. The *Moringa oleifera* seeds which can be processed to get the press cake (mechanical process) or cake residue (chemical process) using solvents can be applied to polluted water and remove heavy metals Fe, Cu, Cd, Pb, and Cr.

*Moringa oleifera* leaves can be applied as a natural adsorbent to remove heavy metals from water (without any modification or chemical treatment); it is an environmentally friendly biosorbent. It is available in Malaysia and other tropical countries which make it a low-cost adsorbent with high biosorption capacity.

### **Acknowledgements**

The author would like to thank Research & Innovation Department/Universiti Malaysia Pahang/Malaysia, for financial support to perform the research work for a few projects which is summarised in this chapter.

**269**

**Author details**

Eman Noori Ali

Malaysia

*Removal of Heavy Metals from Water and Wastewater Using* Moringa oleifera

Faculty of Chemical and Natural Resources Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Lebuhraya Tun Razak, Gambang, Kuantan, Pahang Darul Makmur,

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

\*Address all correspondence to: iman129@gmail.com

provided the original work is properly cited.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89769*

*Removal of Heavy Metals from Water and Wastewater Using* Moringa oleifera *DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89769*
