New Activated Carbon from Mine Coal for Adsorption of Dye in Simulated Water or Multiple Heavy Metals in Real Wastewater.

Marwa Elkady,Hesham Hamad,Hassan Shokry

doi:10.3390/ma13112498

Abstract

Nano-activated carbon (NAC) prepared from El-Maghara mine coal were modified with nitric acid solution. Their physico-chemical properties were investigated in terms of methylene blue (MB) adsorption, FTIR, and metal adsorption. Upon oxidation of the ACS with nitric acid, surface oxide groups were observed in the FTIR spectra by absorption peaks at 1750–1250 cm−1. The optimum processes parameters include HNO3/AC ratio (wt./wt.) of 20, oxidation time of 2 h, and the concentration of HNO3 of 10% reaching the maximum adsorption capacity of MB dye. Also, the prepared NAC was characterized by SEM, EDX, TEM, Raman Spectroscopy, and BET analyses. The batch adsorption of MB dye from solution was used for monitoring the behavior of the most proper produced NAC. Equilibrium isotherms of MB dye adsorption on NAC materials were acquired and the results discussed in relation to their surface chemistry. Langmuir model recorded the best interpretation of the dye adsorption data. Also, NAC was evaluated for simultaneous adsorption of six different metal ions (Fe2+, Ni2+, Mn2+, Pb2+, Cu2+, and Zn2+) that represented contaminates in petrochemical industrial wastewater. The results indicated that the extracted NAC from El-Maghara mine coal is considered as an efficient low-cost adsorbent material for remediation in both basic dyes and metal ions from the polluted solutions.

Highlights

The availability of clean water is getting scarce due to world industrialization
The surface functional groups of Activated carbon (AC) materials have a significant impact on their adsorption characteristics, so, the FT-IR spectra for El-Maghara mine coal and the prepared nano-activated carbon (NAC)
Nano-activated carbon prepared from Maghara coal is sensitive toward nitric acid modification

Summary

Introduction

The availability of clean water is getting scarce due to world industrialization. Nowadays, the world is suffering from a shortage of clean water, in the developing countries. Water pollutants may be either organics such as dyes, phenolic compounds, and heavy metal ions such as lead, arsenic, and zinc. All of these pollutants are characterized by their non-biodegradable nature posing a great risk to human health and the global environment [1]. Materials 2020, 13, 2498 huge amounts of wastewater that increases environmental danger. This industry uses more than ten thousand commercial products, among them, more than three thousand are dyes [2,3]. Owing to the great degree of the stability and non-biodegradable nature of these wastewater contaminates, dyes and heavy metals create a serious problem to the environment [4]

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Conclusion