For a single column better to use map(), like this:

df = pd.DataFrame([{'a': 15, 'b': 15, 'c': 5}, {'a': 20, 'b': 10, 'c': 7}, {'a': 25, 'b': 30, 'c': 9}])

    a   b  c
0  15  15  5
1  20  10  7
2  25  30  9



df['a'] = df['a'].map(lambda a: