Synthetic polymers blend used in the production of high activated carbon for pesticides removals from liquid phase

Abstract

For the activated carbon (AC) production, we used the most common industrial and consumer solid waste, namely polyethyleneterephthalate (PET), alone or blended with other synthetic polymer such polyacrylonitrile (PAN). By mixing PET, with PAN, an improvement in the yield of the AC production was found and the basic character and some textural and chemical properties were enhanced. The PET-PAN mixture was subjected to carbonisation, with a pyrolysis yield of 31.9%, between that obtained with PET (16.9%) or PAN (42.6%) separately. The AC revealed a high surface area (1400, 1230 and 1117 m g) and pore volume (0.46, 0.56 and 0.50 cm g), respectively, for PET, PAN and PET-PAN precursors. Selected ACs were successfully tested for 4-chloro-2-methylphenoxyacetic acid (MCPA) and diuron removal from the liquid phase, showing a higher adsorption capacity (1.7 and 1.2 mmol g, respectively, for MCPA and diuron) and good fits with the Langmuir (PET) and Freundlich equation (PAN and PET-PAN blend). With MCPA, the controlling factor to the adsorption capacity was the porous volume and the average pore size. Concerning diuron, the adsorption was controlled essentially by the external diffusion. A remarkable result is the use of different synthetic polymers wastes, as precursors for the production of carbon materials, with high potential application on the pesticides removals from the liquid phase.

Influence of Pesticide Properties on Adsorption Capacity and Rate on Activated Carbon from Aqueous Solution

“…The adsorbate functional groups that are electron donors activate the aromatic ring by moving electrons toward it, and thereby they enhance the interactions between adsorbate molecule and π electrons of adsorbent graphene planes. On the other hand, the deactivating groups as electron acceptors reduce the electron density of aromatic ring; thus, interactions of adsorbate-adsorbent surface are weakened [1][2][3][4][5][6][7].…”

Polymers Blending as Release Modulating Tool in Drug Delivery

“…Physical mixture of some synthetic polymers including polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) can result in the production of an activated carbon product with different medical, pharmaceutical, and industrial applications including pesticide removal from the liquid phase. The activated carbon can act as an efficient adsorbent agent (Belo et al, 2017). Different natural and synthetic polymers can be blended physically in order to fabricate novel polymeric micro-and nanoparticles with unique characteristics.…”

Use of dirty plastic waste as precursors for activated carbon production—A contribution to the circular economy

“…It was previously reported the use of clean plastic waste, in most of the cases from a specific polymer, for the production of carbon materials, such as graphene mesoporous carbon for high-voltage supercapacitors application and energy conversion (Lian et al, 2019), N-doped microporous carbon for CO 2 capture (Yuan, Li, et al, 2020), porous carbon for CF 4 adsorption (Yuan, Cho, et al, 2020), molybdenum carbide carbon nanocomposites (Mir & Pandey, 2019) and activated carbon (Belo et al, 2017;Cansado et al, 2010;Liu et al, 2015).…”