Activated carbon cellulose acetate based as effective adsorbent of contaminants from water

Abstract

Various methods can be employed to remove pollutants from wastewater. Among these, adsorption using activated carbon materials has proven effective. This work proposes the use of a hazardous waste made from a semisynthetic polymer, cellulose acetate from cigarette butts, as raw material to produce activated carbons (AC). Four adsorbents were prepared from dirty and clean cigarette butts; two chemically activated carbons using phosphoric acid and two physically activated carbons using water vapor at 623K. The carbons were characterized using FTIR, SEM, Nitrogen adsorption, and their points of zero charge. AC produced showed high potential as adsorbents for cleaning hazardous dyes from aqueous solutions. Adsorption isotherms were constructed for the textile dyes on the carbons, and these data were treated using Langmuir's equation to quantitatively describe the adsorption process. The adsorption of dyes with an initial concentration of 300mgdm−3 showed adsorption percentages closed to the 100% for cationic dyes, while these oscillated between 40 and 100% for anionic dyes with the four activated carbons. The highest values of monolayer capacity (am) were achieved with the activated carbon prepared from cellulose acetate without prior treatment. Monolayer capacity with values ranging from 185 to 277mgg-1 for cationic dyes and 126 to 178mgg-1 for anionic dyes were obtained. Therefore, any waste of cellulose acetate can be used to obtain activated carbons with excellent adsorption capacities for dyes Methylene Blue, Crystal Violet, Malachite Green, Sirius Turquoise and Fluorescein.