Adsorption studies of phenol using activated carbon prepared from groundnut shell

Abstract

Due to the rapid urbanization and increasing world population, the need for fresh, clean and uncontaminated water has become a problem of great importance since many sources have been exhausted and others are likely to be contaminated. Phenol is very toxic substance even at low concentration. The major industries that discharge phenolic wastewater include petroleum refineries, petrochemicals, textile, dye manufacturing, phenolic resin manufacturing, glass fiber units, varnish industries and smelting related to metallurgical operations. Activated carbons are the most widely used adsorbents due to their excellent adsorption abilities for organic pollutants. In the present study, Activated carbons were prepared from biomass by chemical activation, using Na2CO3 as a chemical agent for our research work preparation of activated carbon from biomass i.e. peanut shell. The effects of different parameters, such as chemical/biomass ratio, activation time and activation temperature, weight loss, proximate analysis, TGA, FTIR and iodine number of the produced activated carbons will be studied. The adsorption capacity of the activated carbons was evaluated through phenol adsorption and adsorption isotherms were plotted. . It was found that yield % decreased with increase in both temperature and concentration of acid. It was found that the ACs prepared at 700 °C temperature and 100 % impregnation ratio had highest no of microporosity, which was determined by iodine number. The iodine number of the sample was 543.4 mg/g. In the phenol adsorption experiment the increase in dosage showed increased phenol removal efficiency and with increase in phenol concentration the decrease in removal efficiency, but with increase in phenol concentration decreased the phenol removal efficiency. Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms plot were drawn from equilibrium isotherm data. The Freundlich isotherm was much better fit than the Langmuir isotherm.