Adsorption of naphthalene from aqueous solution on activated carbons obtained from bean pods

Abstract

The preparation of activated carbons from bean pods waste by chemical (K(2)CO(3)) and physical (water vapor) activation was investigated. The carbon prepared by chemical activation presented a more developed porous structure (surface area 1580 m(2) g(-1) and pore volume 0.809 cm(3) g(-1)) than the one obtained by water vapor activation (258 m(2) g(-1) and 0.206 cm(3) g(-1)). These carbons were explored as adsorbents for the adsorption of naphthalene from water solutions at low concentration and room temperature and their properties are compared with those of commercial activated carbons. Naphthalene adsorption on the carbons obtained from agricultural waste was stronger than that of carbon adsorbents reported in the literature. This seems to be due to the presence of large amounts of basic groups on the bean-pod-based carbons. The adsorption capacity evaluated from Freundlich equation was found to depend on both the textural and chemical properties of the carbons. Naphthalene uptake on biomass-derived carbons was 300 and 85 mg g(-1) for the carbon prepared by chemical and physical activation, respectively. Moreover, when the uptake is normalized per unit area of adsorbent, the least porous carbon displays enhanced naphthalene removal. The results suggest an important role of the carbon composition including mineral matter in naphthalene retention. This issue remains under investigation.

Activated carbon from coal tar pitch and furfural for the removal of p-nitrophenol and m-aminophenol

“…Summarizing, we have prepared two carbon materials with varied surface chemistry (oxygen-enriched materials) but different basicity. It is interesting to point out that such combination of chemical features is rather unusual in porous carbons, only been described in the literature for carbons prepared from biomass precursors [15][16][17]. These activated carbons were further used to investigate the removal of organic pollutants (m-aminophenol and pnitrophenol) from aqueous phase.…”

NO2 removal on adsorbents prepared from coffee industry waste materials

“…Literature provides many reports on obtaining activated carbon by physical and chemical activation of all kinds of waste materials of plant or industrial origin (Cabal et al 2009;Chand et al 2009;Nakagawa et al 2003Nakagawa et al , 2004San Miguel et al 2002;Toles et al 1999). Such solutions are appreciated not only from the ecological viewpoint but also for economical reasons (reduced cost of production).…”

Removal of PAH Anthracene from Aqueous Media using Banana Peel Activated Carbon

“…Therefore, the time interval of 80 min was selected to investigate the effect of other parameters. The equilibrium contact time reported for removal of different PAHs using activated carbon developed from bean pods (Cabal et al, 2009) and on Posidonia oceania balls (Saad et al, 2013) were 72 h and 20 min, respectively. This can be attributed to the fact that adsorption of an adsorbate depends on various factors such as solubility, hydrophobic character, size and chemical properties of the adsorbate and the nature and characteristics of the adsorbent (Canzano et al, 2014;Gupta and Gupta, 2015b).…”