The growth of population and human civilization forces the world's scientists to look for efficient ways to treat water and wastewater. The contamination of groundwater by heavy metal, originating either from natural soil or from anthropogenic sources creates serious ecological and public health concerns. Since bilions of people around the world use groundwater for drinking purpose, treatment of groundwater is of highest priority. Nanotechnology holds great potential in advanced water and wastewater treatment to improve treatment efficiency. Nanopowder hydroxyapatite (nano-HAP) from natural resources have capacity for heavy metals, low water solubility and high stability under oxidizing and reducing conditions. The objective of the present study is to synthesize bioadsorbant HAPusing rutilus firis kutum scale as precursor following the alkaline heat treatment method. The synthesized nano-HAP was characterized through X-ray diffraction(XRD), FT-IR spectroscopy, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) techniques. The XRD pattern of the sample confirmed the hexagonal structure of nano-HAP. The results from SEM showed almost spherical shape of particles with average size of 11.73 nm. Then, their Cu2+ sorbent capacity from simulated groundwaters were evaluated at different pH values. The adsorption was uptake was greatly pH dependent, with a high uptake of copper at pH up to 5. The percentage Cu2+ uptake was 97.1% at pH 5 and it reduced to 20.3% at pH 10.
