Preparation and characterization of K2CO3-doped powdered activated carbon for effective in-vitro adsorption of deoxynivalenol

Abstract

In this work, the preparation and characterization of new steam-activated K2CO3-doped powdered activated carbons based on modified charcoal with different gasification levels are described and used to test the deoxynivalenol (DON) adsorption behavior. The influence of pore size distribution of the carbons, the adsorbent dose, the initial DON concentration and adsorption time were tested in batch mode. The extent of DON adsorption was measured by using kinetic fluorescence polarization spectroscopy. The experimental results indicated that the DON adsorption is very effective on 8 μm-sized carbon particles containing a pore volume of 0.56 cm3/g for pore sizes <2.6 nm and 0.65 cm3/g for pore sizes >20 nm, respectively. A high percentage of DON adsorption (95.4%) at 37 °C was obtained within a contact time of 1 h by using an adsorbent dosage of 0.2 mg/mL and a DON concentration of 4 μg/mL at pH = 7.