Preparation and Characterization of activated carbon from agricultural waste (Musa-paradisiaca peels) for the remediation of crude oil contaminated water

Abstract

In this work, acetylated plantain peels as a novel composite with high surface area and well-ordered framework of porosity was prepared. Kinetic and isotherm modelling of crude oil removal was considered as well. Batch adsorption studies were carried out with the function of oil water ratio, pH and temperature. Characterization of activated carbon was carried out to ascertain the nature of the composite prepared and its affinity to oil sorption. Surface morphology was investigated with scan electron microscope (SEM). Chemical composition of compounds was investigated using X-ray fluorescent machine while the X-ray diffraction machine (XRD) examined the crystallographic nature of the plantain peels. Salt addition techniques was employed for point zero charge analysis at ionic strengths 0.05 and 0.1 mol/dm3. The influence of pH, temperature and oil/water ratio was found to be highly significant and strongly influenced oil removal by the composite. SEM analysis showed several changes on the surface of the composite after acid treatment. XRF and XRD revealed that the raw plantain peels were highly composed of quartz. The point zero charge revealed that the surface of acetylated plantain peels was predominately positive charge at pH ranging between 4.05±0.1 and 4.07±0.1. However, the composite exhibited high adsorption efficiency at a very low pH of 5 with 90.9% of crude oil removal. Isotherm modelling revealed that the composite material was highly matched to Temkin isotherm model with maximum adsorption capacity of 50.1mg/g. The kinetic data fitted well with Bahattacharya-Venkobachor model. The regenerated biomass exhibited high performance and functionality and used successively in different adsorption activities. Therefore, acetylated plantain peel composite is an efficient, economic viable and sustainable adsorbent materials suitable in remediation of crude oil polluted water.