Carbonaceous material prepared by ultrasonic assisted pyrolysis from algae (Bifurcaria bifurcata): Response surface modeling of aspirin removal

Abstract

Algae Bifurcaria bifurcata (BB) was used to prepare carbonaceous material (CMBB@H2SO4). The prepared CMBB@H2SO4 was characterized using X-Ray diffraction, Nitrogen Physisorption, Fourier Transform Infrared, Scanning Electron Microscopy, and Boehm titration method. The CMBB@H2SO4 was found to have a high surface area of 898.2 m2 g-1. The adsorption kinetics of aspirin on CMBB@H2SO4 followed the pseudo first order and Langmuir model at equilibrium with a high adsorption capacity 2633.04 mg/g. The regeneration of CMBB@H2SO4 was investigated and show a low decrease in the removal performance of CMBB@H2SO4. Finally, the effect of pH, adsorbent mass, and concentration of aspirin were assessed using response surface modeling, the predicted a maximum aspirin removal (98.30 + /- 6.57) under the optimum conditions, which was very close to the experimental value (99.16 + /- 5.34).