Adsorption studies are essential before implementation
in an industrial
plant. We studied the Reactive Blue 5G removal by activated carbon
from Pinus sp. Physical and chemical characteristics
of the adsorbent were evaluated with N2 adsorption/desorption
experiments at 77 K, and equilibrium and kinetics studies were performed
in a batch reactor at several temperatures and pH values. Our results
showed that the activated carbon had a high surface area, effective
diffusion coefficients were of the order of 10–12 cm2·s–1, and mass transfer coefficients
were present in both fluid and solid phases. Equilibrium and kinetics
experiments confirmed that pH and temperature play an important role:
the dye uptake became higher as the temperature and pH decreased,
and the optimum removal was at 303 K and pH 2. Finally, thermodynamics
analysis suggested that the process is exothermic and chemical in
nature. In summary, we showed that activated carbon can be more effective
than other adsorbents already used to remove the Reactive Blue 5G
from wastewater.