The potential of the activated carbon prepared from the empty fruit bunch of oil palm wastes to remove bisphenol A (BPA) from aqueous media was investigated. The experiments were performed by varying the contact time, activated carbon dose, initial BPA concentration, and pH of the solution. The Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin isotherm models were employed to discuss the adsorption behavior. The equilibrium data were perfectly represented by the Langmuir isotherm with R 2 of 0.9985. The maximum monolayer adsorption capacity of the activated carbon was found to be 41.98 mg/g. Kinetic studies indicated that the adsorption process followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic with a rate constant of 0.3×10 −3 /min. The activated carbon was characterized by means of Fourier transform infrared spectrometry, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller, and field emission scanning electron microscopy analyses. The results of the present study indicate that the activated carbon prepared from the empty fruit bunch is a promising candidate as a low-cost bio-adsorbent for the removal of BPA from aqueous solution.

An improved rapid method for determination of the fatty acid composition using modified methylation procedure was compared with the AOAC reference procedure based on the methylation of fatty acid with the addition of BF 3 catalyst before and while heating. The new method is useful for research and routine quality control and has a number of advantages over the reference procedure which are more rapid, simple and also reliable. Applicability of the modified methylation method was confirmed with three vegetable oil samples (palm oil, coconut oil and olive oil). Based on the validation method results, we obtained that a quite linear calibration curve of fatty acids was performed with R 2 in range of 0.9972-0.9994. The sensitivity of gas chromatography instrument was able to analyze the fatty acids up to a few ppm, the precision and accuracy were good enough with the %RSD between 1.5%-19.5% and the recovery of linolenic acid was 99.1% in the range of 80.0%-113.3%.

This study explored the low-cost adsorbent of durian peel for BPA removal from aqueous solutions. The effect of various operational parameters such as contact time, temperature, concentration, agitation and pH on the adsorption of BPA was investigated using the batch adsorption study. It was found that Durian peel can be used as a low cost adsorbent for the removal of BPA in aqueous solution after treated with sulfuric acid. The effects of morphology, functional groups, and surface area of adsorbent, before and after pretreatment with sulfuric acid and reaction were investigated by using FESEM, FTIR, and BET. The present study indicates that durian peel had removed 69.63% of BPA with adsorption capacity of 4.178 mg/g for 24 hours. The result proved that this treated agricultural waste was promising material as an alternative adsorbent for the removal of BPA from aqueous solution. Kinetic study of the results gave a pseudo-second order type of mechanism while the adsorption characteristics of the adsorbent followed the Langmuir adsorption isotherm.

We investigated the effects of activated carbon, used as constructed wetlands (CWs) medium, on its ability to remove four emerging endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs): bisphenol A (BPA), bisphenol F (BPF), bisphenol S (BPS) and 4-tert-butylphenol (4-tert-BP). Two types of CWs planted with common reed were constructed, one with pumice rock called normal CW and the other was amended with activated carbon (AC) called AC-CW. EDCs contaminated synthetic wastewater (5 mg/L of each) was treated by CWs for 8 weeks. AC-CW completely and sustainably removed all four EDCs (98-100%) starting immediately and continuing throughout the experiment. Removal performances of all EDCs by AC-CW were significantly higher than those by normal CW. After experiment, no BPA and BPF and very small amounts of BPS and 4-tert-BP were detected in AC. In AC-CW, final elimination step of EDCs might be biodegradation. In addition, bacterial populations on AC component of AC-CW were one-two orders higher than those on the pumice rock of normal CW. Therefore, in AC-CW, EDCs were initially adsorbed onto AC, where they could be effectively degraded by high bacterial population.