Table of Contents
Banana Peels
Archimède, Heuzé and Tran (2016) defined banana peels as an external covering of the banana natural product. Banana peels are utilized as food for animals, in water filtration or purification, for assembling of a few biochemical items. Bananas are a prevalent natural product devoured worldwide with a yearly creation of more than 165 million tons in 2011. Once the peel is expelled, the organic product can be eaten crude or cooked and the peel is for the most part disposed of. As a result of this disposal of the banana peel, a lot of natural waste is produced.
Banana peels are the outer envelopes of banana fruits. They are the by-product of household consumption and banana processing. Banana peels are accessible in populated zones or in the region of banana preparing plants. They can be found in all tropical and subtropical areas of Asia, America, Africa and Australia where bananas are developed; thus, having an abundant amount of banana peels which the researchers will be using it for as a bio filtering agent.
According to Ulrika Hansson (2012), Bananas constitute one of the most important staple food crops for human consumption in Uganda; hence, having an abundant resource of banana peel waste. He also denoted that bananas are used in our lives daily, so therefore one of the most frequently used feed resource in livestock production.
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Properties
Banana peels has its own properties that is ideal to absorption of heavy metals and harmful chemicals. This was observed by the research of Memon et al. (2008). Their study had shown the characterization of banana peels that enabled them to be useful in removing or absorbing cadmium ions [Cd (II)] from industrial waste water. They had discovered, using (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy) FT-IR and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis, that the pH level, initial metal ion concentration, and temperature were found to be rapid. The binding of the metal ions were found to be pH dependent; which mostly occur at pH 8. And with the use of flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer (FAAS) they were able to remove the cadmium ion from the water.
Research had shown that fruit peels, like banana peel, was able to absorb heavy metals from water. In fact, based on Castro et al. (2011), banana peel absorbed lead and copper ionswhich were component of water became into equilibrium state in just 20 minutes having 11 cycles. The researchers used 0.02 grams of minced dried banana peels for 20 mL waste river water. This process was possible through high retention of lead and copper ion having an acid state which helps in absorption of heavy metals. This was supported by the study of Ashraf et al. (2011), which stated that from the species of banana (Musa sapientum), it shows the absorption percentage of lead, copper, zinc, and nickel metal ions. They have found that the absorption was 92.52% for lead, 79.55% for copper, 63.23% for zinc and 68.10% for nickel metal ions using the state banana peel species. Both of the research used river water as the filtering sample in water adding process and dried banana peels in conducting their research.
Having the ability of banana peels to absorb heavy metals gives it an advantage to make use of it and attract harmful chemicals such as silver nanoparticles like silver nitrate with the use of processed banana peel. This was studied by Bankar, Joshi, Kumar, and Zinjarde (2010), wherein the sample water mixed with silver nitrate (AgN) were found to be synthesized using the processed banana peels, making it a biosorption material to harmful substance. In addition to this, antimicrobial activity towards pathogenic fungi and most of the tested bacterial cultures were found after the process of the synthesizing the silver nanoparticles of water; making it ideally safe and healthy source of water.
