The potential of self-activated carbon for adsorptive removal of toxic phenoxyacetic acid herbicide from water

Abstract

Phenoxyacetic acid herbicides are widely used in agriculture for controlling weeds. These organic compounds are persistent and recalcitrant, often contaminating water and soil. Therefore, we studied five pristine biochars (BCs), and southern yellow pine (SYP) based self-activated carbon (SAC) for the adsorptive removal of 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) herbicide. Among the tested adsorbents, SYP-SAC-15 demonstrated higher (>90%) 2,4-D removal from water. The SYP-SAC-15 was produced using a facile and green route where the biomass pyrolysis gases worked as activating agents creating a highly porous structure with a surface area of 1499.79 m2/g. Different adsorption kinetics and isotherm models were assessed for 2,4-D adsorption on SYP-SAC-15, where the data fitted best to pseudo-second order (R2 > 0.999) and Langmuir (R2 > 0.991) models, respectively. Consequently, the adsorption process was mainly dominated by the chemisorption mechanism with monolayer coverage of SYP-SAC-15 surface with 2,4-D molecules. At the optimum pH of 2, the maximum 2,4-D adsorption capacity of SYP-SAC-15 reached 471.70 mg/g. Furthermore, an increase in the water salinity demonstrated a positive influence on 2,4-D adsorption, whereas humic acid (HA) showed a negative impact on 2,4-D adsorption. The regeneration ability of SYP-SAC-15 showed excellent performance by retaining 71.09% adsorption capability at the seventh adsorption-desorption cycle. Based on the operating pH, surface area, spectroscopic data, kinetics, and isotherm modeling, the adsorption mechanism was speculated. The 2,4-D adsorption on SYP-SAC-15 was mainly governed by pore filling, electrostatic interactions, hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic and π-π interactions.