1 st International Conference on Water and Environmental Engineering, 20-22 Nov 2017, Sydney, Australia 21 Single Component Adsorption of Copper (II) and Nickel (II) from Aqueous Solution using Biochar Derived from Date Seed biomass Zainab Mahdi 1 Ali El Hanandeh 2 and Qiming Yu 3 1 PhD student, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia 2 Lecturer, Griffith University, School of Engineering, Brisbane, Australia 3 Senior Lecturer, Griffith University, School of Engineering, Brisbane, Australia Corresponding author’s E-mail: Zainab.mahdi@griffithuni.edu.au Abstract Biochar has received increasing attention as a potential cost-effective and eco-friendly adsorbent to treat metal-contaminated wastewater. The purpose of this study was to investigate the removal of Cu 2+ and Ni 2+ ions from single component aqueous solutions by adsorption onto biochar derived from date seed biomass (DSB). The biochar was prepared through slow pyrolysis process at 550 °C and a heating time of 3 h. Batch experiments were conducted to study the effects of solution pH, contact time, and initial metal ions concentration. Adsorption removal of the heavy metals was found to be pH dependent and the maximum adsorption capacities were achieved at pH 6. The maximum adsorption capacities for single ions were 0.292 and 0.228 mmol/g for Cu 2+ and Ni 2+ ions, respectively. Adsorption equilibrium data fitted adequately to the Freundlich isotherm model. The kinetic experimental data were well fitted by the pseudo second-order kinetic model with R 2 values of 0.98 and 0.99 for Cu 2+ and Ni 2+ systems, respectively; thus, indicating chemisorption process involving valence forces through the sharing or exchange of electrons. The results showed that date seed derived biochar may be an effective and low- cost adsorbent for the removal of Cu 2+ and Ni 2+ ions from aqueous systems. Keywords: Adsorption, biochar, heavy metal, isotherms, kinetics. 1. INTRODUCTION Water contamination with heavy metals has received considerable attention worldwide because of their high toxicity and non-biodegradability (Gautam et al. 2014). Considering the harmful effects of heavy metals on human health and the environment, it is important to reduce their concentrations in effluents to limits suitable to the receiving environment. Adsorption is the most adopted method due to its simplicity and convenience (Mohan and Singh 2002). Nevertheless, traditional adsorbents such as activated carbon (AC) are expensive. Recently, biochar received attention as a cost-effective material for heavy metal adsorption (Pellera et al. 2012; Chen et al. 2011; Tong et al. 2015; Kılıc et al. 2013). Several studies demonstrated that biochars exhibited high adsorption capacity towards heavy metal ions. Tong et al. (2015) found that some biochars were more effective than commercial activated carbon for the removal of Cu 2+ . Wide ranges of existing literature cover adsorption of different heavy metals onto various biochars (Inyang et al. 2016; Tan et al. 2015). However, to minimize the cost and environmental impacts of biochar production, biochar should be produced from locally available materials such as agricultural waste. Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is a tropical and subtropical tree that grows in hot and arid regions of the world. In 2014, the total world production of date fruit was 8.897 billion tons (FAO 2014). Seed