Development of activated carbon from Eichhornia Crassipes via chemical activation and its application to remove a synthetic dye

Abstract

Dyes wastewater is listed as one of the largest water polluter in this world and cause problems to the environment as well as human health. The present study aims to investigate the adsorption of methylene blue, a cationic dye commonly used in industries by activated carbon derived from the water hyacinth stem (Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms). The removal of MB solution was affected by some parameters such as dosage, contact time, pH, and initial dye concentration. The present study showed that the optimum condition for the adsorption process was pH 7, the adsorbent dosage at 0.8 g with the equilibrium was reached at 100 minutes. However, there is no significant adsorption in the effect of pH. It was found that the best correlation of kinetic with the MB adsorption was the pseudo-second-order model, while the isotherm study was well represented with the Freundlich model. The porosity of adsorbent was enhanced after carbonization process. The functional group presence on the surface of adsorbent including alcohols, carboxyl and carbonyl were also contributed to the effectiveness of adsorption process.